


A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Larceny

by AuditoryCheesecake, uniqueinalltheworld



Series: Team AU's Adoribull Advents [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: "Regency" (with air quotes), 2020 is rough have some porn, Adoribull - Freeform, Dom/sub, Heist, Hurt/Comfort, If Jane Austen and Oceans 8 Had A Gay Baby, Jewelry, Light Feminization, M/M, Meaningful Hand Touches, Minor Sera/Dagna, Minor Vivienne/Bastien, Nontraditional Fake Dating Elements, Scientifically Rumpled Cravats, Specific Victorian Fashion Choices (Nipple Piercings), boot kink, magical healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 35,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27825115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueinalltheworld/pseuds/uniqueinalltheworld
Summary: Every glittering city has its shadowy underbelly, and the spectacle of the Orlesian World's Fair attracts all sorts of attention. Four of the greatest thieves and con men in the city have set their eyes on a prize that will make them legends-- if they can survive the attempt.Dorian, a forger with a flair for the dramatic and a reputation for vanishing into thin air, joins up with the famous Iron Lady and Red Jenny, as well as the enigmatic con man Iron Bull, to make the Heart of the Dales, the pinnacle of the crown jewels, disappear in plain sight.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Series: Team AU's Adoribull Advents [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560526
Comments: 147
Kudos: 105





	1. In Which an Elvhan Lady Makes an Offer to a Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Season's thievings! It's year six (SIX!?) of Team AU's Adoribull Advents and this year we're diving face-first into an 1800s-esque heist story. Hold on to your top hats and bustles, folks!

Three months before the opening ceremonies of the 18:30 Orlesian World’s Fair, two elves meet in a quiet cafe on a back street in Val Royeaux’s sprawling Alienage district. This cafe serves just as much wine as it does coffee, and the two women are both familiar faces to the young man behind the counter, although he has never seen them sit down at the same table before.

By now, he knows better than to correct the taller woman’s pronunciation, though he is pleased that her broad Fereldan accent has softened over the months. She wears men’s trousers, a couple years out of style, and a scowl as she takes in her companion.

Mademoiselle Sabre’s clothing makes few nods to the fast-changing styles of the fashionable set, though her dress is clean and well made. Everything from the vibrant green of her shawl to the cut of her hair speaks of the Elvhan Sepratist Party, and her tattoos most of all. The glowering male elf behind her left shoulder, has no such markings, only a plain black waistcoat, tailored with enough room to move easily, and a sword much larger than is generally considered decent to wear in public.

He remains standing as the ladies sit and Mademoiselle Sabre opens a sheaf of papers.

The young man at the counter is well trained in gentility, and would never deliberately listen in.

“So this is my team, then?” the blonde woman asks, leafing through the files. “Fewer of your folks than I thought there’d be.”

Mademoiselle Sabre’s nose crinkles. “Sera, you’re an elf too, you know. And anyways, I thought a group of elves would attract more attention than a more… diverse… not that you’re not lovely! It’s great being an elf! That's the whole point of...this.” 

“True enough.” the woman in trousers, Sera, begins cleaning her nails at the table. “The bit about the mixed group, I mean. I don't really care about the elfy stuff one way or another. Figure that's part of why you’re hiring me.”

Mlle. Sabre nods in acknowledgement, before turning back to the papers before her companion. The silent man in the black waistcoat looks at the young man at the bar threateningly until he resumes pretending to work.

Sera frowns at one paper in particular. “Merrill, these three have good rep, but all of them have it for working alone. How many of them are already on board?”

“Well, it’s just you at the moment, but I hope the advance I’m giving you will be enough to make them listen.”

For a minute Sera looks annoyed, then shrugs. “I’ve worked from less. Do you at least know where to find them?”

“Madame de Fer is the key.” Merrill leans over and pulls one page out in particular. “The other two have experience with her, and will trust her judgement.”

“Oh, so _I_ just have to convince the Iron Lady to steal a priceless gem from the most-watched building in Orlais, and then it’s all golden.” Sera laughs and takes a swallow of her wine.

“Exactly!” Merrill beams at her. They face each other across the table for a long minute, Sera scowling, Merrill smiling beatifically. The silent elf’s lips twitch. 

“Fuck it,” Sera says. “What’s her current address? I’ll bring some sodding flowers.”

\--- 

Vivienne is just finishing her correspondence to Bastien, coded, of course, when Dorian strolls into her parlor.

“It is not polite to enter a lady’s chambers unannounced,” she says, waving the page to dry the ink. “I might think you were up to something untoward.”

“Oh, really, Vivienne. It’s not as if we haven’t entered plenty of chambers unannounced together.” Dorian teases. “Besides, I brought wine to make up for my lack of compunction.” 

She looks up sharply. “Not the wine from last night?”

“Maker, no.” He sets the bottle on the table beside her, careful not to disturb any of her pages or deceptively decorative writing implements. He knows how sharp they can be in a pinch. “ _That_ wine is safely on its way to Varric’s warehouse, to await its very legal auction. This wine was manufactured five years ago in Val Fermin, and tastes roughly the same, despite being far more affordable.”

“Extremely affordable.” She turns it over in her hands. “You haven’t spent it all already, have you?”

“Who, me?” Dorian gestures to his rumpled waistcoat and undone shirtsleeves. He’s fairly certain there’s ink smudged on his face as well. “I haven’t left my room since we got back. I had a stroke of genius, you see, and I think I’ve found the flaw in the formula I’ve been using--”

“Madame de Fer,” a hotel footman taps politely at the door. “You have a visitor. He brought these for you, as well.” 

“See that, Dorian? Decorum.” She gestures for the flowers to be placed on the mantle. They look a little sad beside the mass of peonies Bastien sends her after every successful job. But still, Dorian thinks wistfully, two entire bouquets. Anonymity does come at the painful cost of public congratulations.

“I apologize, Madame,” says the man in the doorway, although he does not linger in the hallway where anyone could see him. Dorian approves of how swiftly the footman is closed out of the room. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

Vivienne stands and accepts a kiss on her fingers. “You’re never an intrusion, darling. Monsieur Renard was just leaving.”

“I was?” Dorian believes himself to be quite professional, or at least rarely so gauche as to be caught off guard when Vivienne signals him to play along with something. In his own defense, however, the sight of the Iron Bull-- for the Iron Bull it must be--in an impeccably tailored and crisply pressed linen suit caused Dorian to have thought for little else besides his own sartorial disarray. 

The Iron Bull looks around the room quickly, his single eye darting from Dorian, to Vivienne, to the wine bottle, to the letter, and back to Dorian. “If you trust him, Madame, my news isn’t too sensitive. The matter has been concluded to our satisfaction, just a few wrinkles for my boys to iron out.”

Something passes between the Iron Bull and the Iron Lady. A quirk of an eyebrow, a significant nod.

“Very well,” Vivienne sighs. “Monsieur Renard, allow me to introduce my friend and long-time associate, the Iron Bull. Bull, darling, Monsieur Renard assisted me with that lovely little business with the Rivaini Silver Reserve some months back.”

“Really!” A broad smile transforms the Iron Bull’s face, and Dorian is ashamed at how easily his own flushes in return. “That was a nice piece of work.”

“Always a pleasure to work with Madame de Fer,” Dorian manages.

They are interrupted by another knock. Dorian looks to the door, but the Iron Bull, apparently of sharper hearing, crosses the room and opens the glass door onto Vivienne’s fourth story balcony.

“Oh good!” Says the elf, tossing a wilted fistful of belvedere roses carelessly onto a side table. “You’re all here, then.”


	2. In Which a Proposal is Made That Bears Striking Similarity to a Pact of Mutual Suicide

Bull feels a little discomfited. If the police came into this room at this moment, it would take them twenty years to read off the list of suspected crimes of everyone present. And that’s not even going into the ones of which they _ought_ to be suspected. 

Between himself and Vivienne, dozens of defrauded nobles and vanished valuables, not to mention a conveniently timed inheritance or three. And “Monsieur Renard”-- the Black Fox-- an empress's ransom in stolen gems, forged artworks, and fraudulent magical antiquities. Not to mention Red Jenny herself, only slightly less scruffy than her wanted posters. Even Bull doesn’t know everything she’d done, and he prides himself on being quite knowledgeable in these sorts of affairs. 

“Got an offer for you,” Red Jenny starts, once Vivienne has put down her viciously sharp letter opener. “All of you.” 

“Is it you walking back off that balcony and sending a card to the door like a civilized person?” Bull hasn’t seen Vivienne this angry in a long time. She values her privacy more than the average lady. More than the average thief, even.

“We’re criminals,” Sera scoffs. “What sort of criminal would I be if I had a sodding card?” 

Bull carefully doesn’t let his eye turn towards M. Renard, who most certainly leaves an engraved calling card at each of his more spectacular heists, while Vivienne merely huffs in response. 

“All of us?” M. Renard interrupts. “I’m certain I have no idea what you mean. And how dare you barge into a lady’s parlor at this hour?”

“It’s one o’ clock, darling,” says Vivienne.

“Precisely,” M. Renard says emphatically, though Bull would lay money on this being news. The man appears to have not slept in quite some time. He has no jacket on over his waistcoat, one of his sleeves is rolled up to the elbow, and his cravat is entirely absent.

“Yes, all of you,” Red Jenny says again, ignoring her indecency altogether. “I’ve got a mark. You’ve got skills. A third party has a lot of money they’re willing to cough up.”

“You clearly have skills of your own.” Vivienne gestures to the balcony. “And a _stellar_ reputation, to boot. Why not have some of your littler Jennies do the job?”

Red Jenny shakes her head. “I need the best, and the best is you. Social graces, smiling faces, and a lightfinger who can vanish into thin air.”

M. Renard preens a bit at the special mention. “What exactly is the going price for this mark of yours?” Flattery works on him, then. Bull makes a note of that.

Red Jenny smirks and reaches into her jacket’s innermost pocket, upending a sack and pouring roll after heavy roll of banknotes onto the coffee table in front of them. “The sort of price where this is just a partial advance.” 

Bull has to admit, he likes her style. He glances over to Vivienne, who looks unmoved.

“Your benefactor is either the empress herself, or is someone who very badly wants us to rob her.” Vivienne would never check if the rolls of money were real herself, but has no compunctions about handing one off to Bull for him to do so.

Sera points at her with a grin. “Got it in one. The client wants the Heart of the Dales, and I don’t know about you lot, but _I_ want to become a legend.“

“That’s suicide, my dear.” Vivienne snaps just as M. Renard sighs dreamily.

“Hey, if one of us dies, that’s just a bigger cut of _this_ ,” Red Jenny gestures to the money, “for the other three.”

“How terribly empathetic of you,” Vivienne says in disgust.

“Or, you can walk away now, and your boys and I can figure this out on our own.” Red Jenny shrugs.

Vivienne balks at that. “It’s my hotel room, dear, if you’re going to plan a heist in it I rather think I ought to be included.”

“Alright then.” Jenny begins the slow process of gathering up her dramatic gesture. Bull helps. M. Renard has already pocketed a bit of his own share when he thought no one was looking. “The Heart will be on display at the World’s Fair this summer, in the Historical Treasures building. Probably in her own little display case. The finest locks, magic guards, guard guards, all that shite. Plus whatever security they have in the building proper, _and_ all the little people oohing and ahhing over a rock that costs more than their lives.”

“If it’s coming out of the empress’s vault for this,” Bull says, frowning, “why not take it out in transit? That’s generally when things are least secure.”

“That’s why I need mister Fox here,” Jenny says. “This isn’t just a smash and grab. We’re being paid to create a _spectacle_. Our employer wants us to replace it with something dramatic.”

“Replica jewels are easy,” M. Renard says archly. “They’ll never even know it was stolen.”

“You aren’t listening to me,” Red Jenny actually leans across the table to flick the Black Fox on the earlobe. “It’s not going to be quietly replaced. It’s going to _magically disappear_.

“So,” the infamous Black Fox strokes a mustache much more dashing than Bull had expected it to be, “A replica, that hours after we’ve switched them out, vanishes in a puff of smoke and scattering of sparks? Not as easy, but still well within my skills. Yes, I think you’ve come to the right man.”

“Can you actually do that?” Bull asks. He’s certainly never seen anything like it.

“Of course I can,” M. Renard may sound like he’s bluffing, but he looks offended that Bull even asked.

“Simple enough,” Vivienne agrees, “but that’s only one element of it. Even in transport, the heart will be astoundingly well guarded.”

Red Jenny’s grin turns sly. “Not from above it won’t. And you know what will be in the Hall of Magictechnical Progress the first three weeks of the Fair, before the Heart is even on the move?”

“Mademoiselle Smith’s Aerocopter!” M. Renard gasps. Bull glances at Vivienne, who gives an eloquent shrug.

“So this is two jobs,” Vivienne says. “Unless you’re about to produce this Mademoiselle Smith from your atrociously large jacket pockets as well.”

The final roll of banknotes collected, Red Jenny stands. “That’s about the long and short of it. So, you all in?” 

“Absolutely,” M. Renard says immediately.

Vivienne surveys them all with mingled excitement and displeasure. “This is a fool’s undertaking, but I suppose if you all insist on going ahead, I shall do my best to keep it from being genuine suicide.” 

“Bull? In or out?” Red Jenny asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Bull glances at the money in his hands, then at the dexterous fingers and well defined wrist revealed by the Black Fox’s rolled-up shirtsleeve. “In.” he says. “Definitely.”


	3. In Which A Plan Begins to Take Shape In Another Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Will the ladies be joining us in the kitchen?”
> 
> The Iron Bull grimaces. “I didn’t want to interrupt them.”
> 
> “You mean you were afraid to interrupt them.”

Dorian doesn’t plan on asking too many questions about how exactly Sera is bankrolling this rustic retreat they’re hiding out in until the Fair actually begins and they set their plan in motion. He’s no stranger to ill-gotten gains, of course, but it’s not decorated in her style at all. Which is to say, it has a style.

Vivienne knows more than he does about wealthy patrons, but if she recognizes their chateau or has suspicions about its owner, she isn’t sharing. In any case, the most important thing is that there be enough space for all four of them, and Dorian has no complaints on that front.

Having the choice to retreat to either a private room _or_ a private laboratory when he grows tired of his co-conspirators’ bickering is a heavenly boon. Dorian knows Vivienne is all in, and poking holes in Sera’s plans is both a wise way to strengthen them and an important step in Vivienne’s unorthodox style of overtures of friendship, but Sera doesn’t seem to appreciate any of that. 

Dorian claimed the room directly beside the library of course. After moving his own scant belongings into the chest of drawers and spending some time appreciating the apparatuses he’s been supplied with, he spends hours in this new treasure trove.

The majority of the books themselves are, of course, nothing too special, but Dorian has been living life half-way on the run for years now. His legal identity is just as conspicuous as his criminal, and though he can craft beautiful fake documents, he’s had trouble making any false front stick for longer than a month or two.

He’s certainly slept in places that didn’t ask any questions beyond whether he could pay for the week, or the day, and he’s certainly called on some particular friends, but he has not owned a _bookshelf_ in some time.

So it’s not about what’s in the books. It’s about being among them.

He sees the Iron Bull out in the gardens behind the chateau, strolling along through the evening quiet with a genteel cane in his hand, and wonders if he’s enjoying being outside the city as well.

When the light grows dim enough that he must light a candle or cast a spell, he goes to the laboratory. It is a wonder to behold, from its full complement of electric lights to the spectacular compound microscope mounted on a rolling platform. His days of peering through a magnifying glass in a dusty attic are gone for the time being, and Dorian could not be happier.

He’s been supplied with photographs, cyanotypes, drawings, and even an oil painting of the Heart of the Dales. Some of the paper seems decades old, or even older, the pages held between panes of glass so that he can see each side, but not risk damaging them by direct handling.

The color is part of the equation. The gem is not uniformly green, nor is it perfectly translucent. There is some cloudiness within it that he must replicate. The facets must of course be cut at the right angles, but that is simple geometry.

The greatest challenge will be the magic. Part of the gem’s allure comes from the aura it exudes, because part of the cloudiness within it is in fact lyrium. That’s the most expensive material he’s been supplied with. Even Sera’s mysterious employer seems to have only been able to afford a little.

Lyrium is a volatile substance, especially in its raw form, and its sale is controlled by Imperial Orlesian edicts. Dorian has not worked with it south of the Imperium.

His supply glows quietly in a triply-sealed container, and he cannot wait to get his hands on it.

Dorian’s only complaint about anything in the laboratory is that he can not hear the door open. He will have to construct some sort of warning system. Sera has already snuck up on him twice, and they’ve barely been here a full day. 

The Iron Bull certainly could sneak up on him, but he has yet to do so. Instead, he knocks politely at the door and waits until Dorian sets down the tinted goggles he’s trying on and beckons him in.

He looks every bit the part of the country squire, in a brown muslin jacket and white trousers that clearly show that he’s been trekking in the fields and forest too, and appears to be carrying a basket--an actual wicker basket lined with a rather feminine blue handkerchief under one muscular arm. It’s part of his charm, Dorian’s sure, that he can inhabit a multitude of roles with ease. The man before him is a gentleman farmer, while the man he met in Vivienne’s parlor was a tailored city scholar. Part of his charm, and therefore part of his playbook.

“So, Monsieur Renard,” The Iron Bull hooks one thumb into his trouser pocket, the first indecorous thing Dorian has seen him do in the three days he’s known him. Something tells Dorian this is the closest he’s gotten to seeing the real Iron Bull--as real as someone the Orlesian Guard call “the man who has no face” can be, at any rate. “What do you know about mushrooms?” 

Dorian is a little taken aback, but never let it be said he isn’t one to soldier through. “I encountered some particularly dazzling specimens at a seance a month or two ago. Were you looking for a certain strain or…?”

“No, no,” The Iron Bull stops him hastily. “I mean I found some morels on my walk today and was inquiring if you knew any particularly good recipes.” 

“They go well with spring greens,” Dorian offers. “And they pair best with a full bodied red wine or a crisp champagne.”

The Iron Bull looks less impressed than Dorian hoped he’d be. “That’s a place to start, I suppose. Choose something good from the wine cellar and meet me in the kitchen.”

“When should I expect supper to be served?” Dorian asks, aiming to match the Iron Bull’s polite tone.

“When we’re done making it,” is the answer. “Our employer is serious about secrecy. There’s no staff here, remember.”

Dorian’s stomach sinks. “I thought there was at least a skeleton staff in the building.”

“Just us!” The Iron Bull seems entirely too cheerful about that. Dorian staunchly resists his infectious smile. “To be honest, I’m glad not to have someone bustling in to turn down my sheets every morning. I’m not really a very public person.” 

“Not even a cook, though?” Dorian thinks longingly of his chefs and butler back on the Pavus estate.

“The pantry is well stocked and there’s a garden off the kitchen. We’ll eat well, Monsieur Renard, we just have to cook it ourselves.”

In the spirit of their shared endeavor, Dorian supposes, he must do his best. “I cannot promise that I will be much help with the cooking, but I’m fast enough with a knife. I’m quite confident in my ability to dispatch any vegetable you give me.”

“I believe it,” the Iron Bull says. Dorian is well-versed in the type of calculating glance the Iron Bull gives him, and takes a moment to bask in it. He’s no stranger to mixing business with pleasure. 

“Will the ladies be joining us in the kitchen?”

The Iron Bull grimaces. “I didn’t want to interrupt them.”

“You mean you were afraid to interrupt them.” As if on cue, Dorian hears the faint clatter of a thrown object from the parlor upstairs.

“If I’m cooking most of the meal, then it’s your job to tell them it’s ready.”

Dorian shudders theatrically, though it’s not much of an exaggeration. “The meal had best be spectacular then, to make my sacrifice worth it.” 

“That much I can certainly manage.” The Iron Bull waits for Dorian to take his arm and escorts him upstairs.


	4. In Which Dinner is Made

Bull does enjoy cooking when he has the time, but having Monsieur Renard as a sous chef is a unique challenge. He does know his way around a knife-- which is interesting, because Bull is now fairly confident that the mysterious Black Fox is actually a mage-- but his skills end there.

“Dice this, please,” Bull says, handing him some cloves of garlic. He turns to figure out where the previous tenant of this kitchen kept their sauce pans, and when he looks back, M. Renard is cautiously peeling the skin off of each clove with the tip of a steak knife.

Bull puts down his pan and gently takes the garlic back, politely ignoring the embarrassed flush on M. Renard’s face. “Use this knife instead, and crush the cloves under the flat of the blade. See? The skin comes right off. Now, dice these, please.”

He goes back to his own preparations, keeping his eye on his assistant. M. Renard is, as he almost always seems to be, in slight disarray. His shirt sleeves are clean today, but only because they’re pushed up past his elbows. The apron he’d left in the lab seemed to have been charred by some small explosion, and his hair is still mussed from how quickly he’d removed the blueish goggles he’d been wearing when Bull arrived. 

“This reminds me of some of my schooling,” M. Renard tells him, working over the garlic with a thoughtful expression. “Although you are much kinder with my mistakes than Praeceptora Lupe ever was.”

Bull’s ears prick up with curiosity. M. Renard has been understandably cagey about the details of his life. And his real name. “So you were educated in the Imperium?” he asks casually, keeping his attention focused on the lemon basil he is carefully rolling into a chiffonade. 

Beside him, he feels M. Renard freeze for a moment. Bull won’t press him for details if he doesn’t choose to share, but he is interested. In a strictly professional manner, of course. The Black Fox is almost a more famous enigma than he is a thief, and Bull enjoys a puzzle.

“I grew up there, in fact,” he says. It’s an opening, and a consciously offered one at that, but Bull doesn’t want to move too fast. M. Renard is not a typical mark, and Bull would never treat a fellow tradesperson as such, but he might be scared off just as easily all the same. 

“I grew up in Par Vollen,” Bull offers in return. “We walk strange paths, don’t we, Monsieur Renard?”

“Strange indeed,” he says with a raised eyebrow. 

Bull works in silence, letting M. Renard make the next move, if there is to be one.

The Fox finishes off the garlic, and moves on to shredding a leek to delicate ribbons. He holds the knife deftly, without the outstretched fingers that typically mark a beginner cook. M. Renard’s knuckles bear a crisscross of scars, pale lines across deep copper. They are no doubt a souvenir of his previous “lessons” and Bull finds that he has been distracted contemplating them for some time when M. Renard finally does speak again. “I haven’t been home in some time. Though I do find it a much more pleasant place to be now that so few of my relatives are still alive.” He offers a sharp-toothed smile, a clear attempt to distract the Bull from his sincerity before sliding the completed leeks across the chopping board. Despite its clear artifice, it is not entirely ineffective. 

Bull carefully unfastens and pockets his cuff links, smoothing out the places where motion has rumpled his suit’s linen. It gives his hands an appropriate occupation, and allows him to turn up his sleeves. He gives the morels--perfectly cleaned, but M. Renard needn’t know that-- a final rinse below the cool tap, surreptitiously running his wrists under as well. 

He dries his hands and turns to the cooking range. It is not quite as modern as Monsieur Renard’s laboratory downstairs and he finds the flame too inconsistent to trust his bechamel to it. Time for another risk then. “This is a place your particular skills would be most beneficial,” he tells M. Renard.

“I rather think this is a place where I must defer to the master.” M. Renard looks utterly adrift. “I think we should boil some water for the pasta first?”

“Oh,” Bull says, “I can handle everything inside the saucepan, if you can keep the flame steady.”

He feels the Fox’s eyes on him, doesn’t falter as he gives Monsieur Renard time to weigh the possible outcomes following his response. “I’m afraid you have me mistaken, sir. Madame de Fer is the mage, not me.”

Bull gives him the look he perfected on his first job as an Antivan ambassador’s au pair. "As you say, Monsieur Renard.” Bull painstakingly places a large pat of butter into the saucepan, making a small show of measuring out flour with his back to the stovetop. He returns, whisk in hand, to find the flame steady and even, though he makes no move to examine it. 

“If I am ever apprehended,” Bull says casually, “it will not be by the Orlesian Guard. And whether I know any mages from Tevinter will be of very little concern to those that will pay most to take me into custody.”

“The Orlesian Guard are a pack of blundering imbeciles,” Monsieur Renard replies. “If they manage to keep me long enough to ask me if I’d prefer a smoke or a glass of water, I would fall on my own knife rather than face the criminal community thereafter.”

“Good man,” Bull says,hiding a smile behind placid whisking, “a little hotter, please.”

The flames, through no actions of Monsieur Renard’s, begin to rise.


	5. In Which The Wheels Begin to Turn

“I’m gonna spend it all on cigars and women,” Sera says, laying on her back in the grass.

Bull smiles to himself. “That’s a good plan, but it’s not the part most in need of discussion.”

“We’ve been _discussing_ all day!”

“Is that what you call this?” Monsieur Renard asks from where he’s sketching gems and chemical formulae in a little notebook. A slight furrow of the brow as he circles a sum beneath his notations. “Also, who do I get in touch with about acquiring a state of the art furnace?”

“Mademoiselle is correct.” This morning, Madame de Fer announced her intention to bring her discourse with Sera back to a civilized volume, if not vocabulary. “We have the makings of a plan. We simply cannot move forwards without acquiring more--” 

“Details.” Sera finishes for her. “We can’t pin the job on her without knowing enough about what this Dagna woman likes. Refined ladies? Muscular blokes? Messy Science types…” she points a finger at each of them in turn, before returning it to its previous occupation of scooping the last vestiges of grainy mustard out of her jar, and spreading it on bits of the sort of dense brown bread Bull doesn’t know how to get outside the Nevarran countryside. 

“ _I_ have plenty of work ahead of me still,” interjects M. Renard. “The replica is still in the theoretical stage and I have too little lyrium for more than one or two genuine attempts. I’m afraid I’m out of the running if there’s another task to be handed out.” Bull detects no small amount of relief in his voice at the excuse. Monsieur Renard is quite an honest sort of person, for a thief. 

Vivienne looks expectantly at Bull.

“I’ll do what I can, ma’am, but you know as well as I do that I really only do it for a certain… type of person.” 

“Nonsense, darling, you’re the pinnacle of charm. Any discerning lady of science would be honored to be seduced by you.”

“I wouldn’t,” Sera snorts.

“I did say discerning, didn’t I?” Vivenne’s retort is met only with a scowl and not the heavy objects it would have been mere days before. Bull chooses to believe that means she and Sera are starting to like one another. 

“She has a machinist’s shop, here in town,” M. Renard mumbles from within his calculations. “I doubt she’ll be there but we might be able to meet some of her staff, see what we can glean from them about their employer. 

“There’s a carriage in the remise!” Sera leaps to her feet. “I’ll put a crack in a wheel or something, and you can drive it over to her shop!”

“Perhaps you could sabotage it _after_ the drive?” Vivienne hides it well, but Bull has been on cons with her long enough to know even the slightest turbulence in a carriage ride is enough to make her queasy. 

“No, no, no, Bull should drive in from out of town, all tired and desperate for help, an’ Dagna can see him an’ rush to his rescue!” Sera is pacing up and down now, beginning to gesticulate wildly. “She’ll be all, “oh no, good sir, what is the matter?” and Bull will be like “I need to get to Val Royeaux to make sure my dying sister’s sick baby gets to see the Heart of the Dales at the World's Fair, it was our dear, darling mother’s very last wish! Please help me!” And then she’ll think he’s so good and kind she’ll do whatever he asks.”

Monsieur Renard adjusts his mustaches over his grin. “And where, pray tell, are we getting this baby?” 

“Oh, babies are easy. I can just nick one from town if you--”

“ _No_ , thank you.” Vivienne interjects forcefully. “I think your plan shall work just fine without the addition of infant smuggling to our to do list.”

“An ill baby does always pull at the heartstrings,” Bull says, “but setting up a con where I might have to actually produce one introduces too many variables.”

Monsieur Renard looks scandalized. Sera takes his distress as opportunity to lean over his notebook and correct one of the calculations. 

“She might not even be in town,” Bull continues. “It’ll be better if I can improvise. Setting up too much story ahead of time might bog me down in the moment.”

“I won’t tell you how to do your job,” Sera says, “but really, a baby is no problem.”

“No children, please,” says M. Renard. 

“Fine!” Sera climbs to her feet and vaults over the garden gate. “I’m going to make sure the carriage doesn’t already need to be fixed.”

Vivienne waves a polite goodbye, and Sera sticks her tongue out, and M. Renard throws his notebook to the ground in frustration.

“I’m going to spend it all on commissioning a writing implement that won’t smudge,” he mutters. “So much modern magic around us and my hand still looks like a malnourished snowfluer when I write a letter.”

“You could just write with your other hand, darling. I’ve seen you crack locks with your right hand, why not scribble with it as well?”

M. Renard throws Vivienne a haughty look. “I’m living this life, in this country that freezes solid for months at a time, because I prefer to follow my natural inclinations.”

“Inclinations towards left-handed calligraphy,” she says with an arched eyebrow.

“And towards crime, and away from land management and politics,” M. Renard says grandly.   
“Towards men, and away from loveless arranged marriages.”

Vivienne gives a tiny sigh, as if she’s heard this dramatic litany before. “Inclinations towards freedom. Yes, dear, I know.”

“And I will not bow to the demands of society--”

“And its small-minded masters, no matter their nation,” Vivienne finishes. “If you must quote historical treatises to me, don’t take one from a book that I leant you.”

M. Renard flushes slightly, and gives his hair a little shake as he lifts his chin. “I took it to heart.”

“It’s about the cessation of the Circles of Magic and the dissolution of the South Andrastian Templar Order in the Light Age.”

“It’s _about_ equality. And liberation.”

“You’re a revolutionary, then, Monsieur Renard?” Bull asks with interest.

“To be a revolutionary, I would have to recognize the current ruler’s authority, which I most certainly do not.”

Vivienne has her eyes closed, face tilted towards the sun, but Bull can still see the eyeroll she is trying to hide. “Have some figs, darling. They go marvellously with the Orlesian brie.”

“This land we stand on is the ancestral homeland of the Dalish Elves, promised to them centuries ago, then stolen twice, through violence and through underhanded political machinations.” M. Renard seems to be winding himself up all on his own. “Politicians are the Maker’s curse on the common folk.”

“And to think, when I first met you you didn’t know the difference between an indentured servant and a hired tailor.” Vivienne’s tone is thoroughly bored, and Monsieur Renard flushes deeper.

“I’ve learned about many things since then.” 

Vivienne cracks an eye open to give Renard a look of genuine caring. “I suppose you have. Now, if you truly wish to discuss political action, perhaps we should start by figuring out how we intend to repatriate this priceless gem back to the Elvhen people. That is what we are being paid to do here, yes?”

Monsieur Renard sighs and picks up his notebook once more, eyes falling with surprise on the calculation Sera corrected. “Indeed. And it seems we may be able to manage it without that new furnace after all.”


	6. In Which Absolutely No One is Seduced

Bull chooses to drive the green phaeton, rather than the fancier but much heavier carriage. It’s clearly not designed for someone of his stature, but their mark is on the shorter side, so if they need to drive together, it should even out.

It’s dashing, is the key, and fast, so Bull runs inside to change as Sera finishes up her “adjustments.”

He aims for fashionable but a little strapped for cash. Silver cufflinks and an almost threadbare velvet waistcoat under a practical driving coat. He’d ripped his best gloves on his last job, and Krem had taken care to mend them in a noticeable way. That, paired with sturdy, worn boots-- he didn’t have access to a cobbler who was as skilled or discreet as his favorite tailor-- made Oswald Ataash, (very) late of the Fereldan Navy, complete.

“I think you brought more clothing to this chateau than I own altogether,” Monsieur Renard remarks from the doorway, making Bull jump. 

“Clothing tells you much more about a person than anything they say, and it’s harder to fake than an accent.” Bull wipes the last of the lather from his freshly shorn chin and adjusts his plainest leather eyepatch over his eye.

“Is that so?” It sounds like a challenge.

“Sure,” Bull says offhandedly. “You’re left handed-- you confirmed today, but there’s faint ink stains on your sleeve that told me before. You wear your coatsleeves a bit looser than current fashions, which tells me you’re either oblivious to them--obviously untrue, given your boots--or you’re hiding a knife up there. So you feel safest when you know you’re the most dangerous man in the room. And speaking of those boots--gorgeous. They a custom job? The soles of Hessian boots should be hard, but even I didn’t hear you coming down the hall. All that shiny leather--” Bull swallows, finding his mouth a bit dry. “--you know the value of standing out, but you prefer knowing exactly how to disappear.”

“All right,” M. Renard sounds amused, though his eyes are like storm clouds. Maybe he doesn’t like being examined like that, but Bull enjoys doing it. “And what do these clothes say about you? Or the man you’ve created?”

“Ser Oswald Ataash,” Bull says, slipping into broad Fereldan vowels. “He was a real man, for a little while. Was second mate on a ship in the Fereldan Navy for four months, then went overboard in a storm. Presumed dead, but I guess he got back to land somehow-- details won’t matter unless I have to have a heart to heart with Mistress Smith-- and now he’s living off his father’s aunt in Serault. But he’s on the outs with her right now.”

M. Renard makes an impressed noise. “You do have the accent down pat. Southern coast?”

“Gwaren’s far enough from Orzammar, where Mistress Smith grew up. Her path would never have crossed with Ataash’s.”

“I’m not surprised you favor military covers,” M. Renard says. “And yes, your clothes fit the bill. But lose the cufflinks. If our Ataash is hard up for money, those would be the first thing he’d sell, no? If he’s an honest enough man not to seek alternative employment.”

Bull can’t help but let his eye dart to Renard’s own unfastened shirtsleeves. “Right you are. Be hard to replace, too.” 

The Black Fox makes a noncommittal noise. “Hard, at least, to find the right pair for the job.” 

“I’ve always had trouble buying them for myself. The pairs I’ve liked best have always been gifts.” Or had doubled as earrings, but M. Renard doesn’t need to know how very wide a variety of roles Bull enjoys inhabiting just yet. 

“Oh, I never buy cufflinks,” M. Renard agrees with a blithe smile. “And I never buy gifts.”

\---

The little mechanic’s shop on the west side of town is positively bustling as Bull’s bedraggled phaeton limps to a stop. The horse he’d hitched it to, a placid gray mare, is unbothered. Bull’s not as adept at reading horses as he is people, but she seems like she could have been pulling this small and recently off-balance carriage at a careful trot for a little while. 

The workshop feels like a blacksmith’s forge was crossed with Monsieur Renard’s laboratory and the result was put through an industrial laundry drum with a children’s fairytale and spun around for twenty years. There’s a vashoth with goggles and gloves hammering something large and glowing into a statue of a lion. Two people are carrying a pane of glass, but there’s something wrong about how it reflects the light. An old dwarven man is examining something small at a table lit from below with a bright light, scribbling notes down on a long sheaf of paper that seems to be autonomously rolling itself up so that his hand never moves but there is always blank paper under his pen. 

The items for sale in the front are equally novel, though on a more understandable scale. Bull paces aimlessly between a rack of never-cold tea mugs inscribed with some sort of modified fire rune and a vase displaying “The Magically Smudgeless, Instant-Dry Fountain Pen” hoping to look confused enough that someone will take pity on him. It doesn’t take long.

“Oh, I know that look,” the voice comes from near Bull’s waist. He turns to find a cheerful-looking dwarf coated in oil stains, her reddish hair pushed back by a pair of rose-tinted goggles. “You were looking for a different kind of machinist’s shop, huh?” 

“Well I--” Bull clears his throat and reminds himself to use a more Fereldan accent. It’s difficult; he’s been an Orlesian for eight months now without a reprieve. “I’m still glad I ended up here, if that’s what it took to encounter you, Mistress--”

“Just Dagna’s fine.” 

Bull bends double to kiss her gloved hand. He thinks drake skin--something heavy, fireproof, and deeply unfashionable. “Oswald Ataash. I find myself Enchanted. Quite literally. This place is a marvel of magical engineering.” 

Dagna beams with pride, though Bull sees her eyes dart away, towards whatever her Vashoth assistant is hammering away at, before settling politely back on him. “I’m glad you think so. I certainly do. Now, is there anything I can help you with? It’s not really our main focus, but I have an apprentice who’s a terrific clockmaker.”

“It’s my carriage, I’m afraid.” Bull affects a look of earnest desperation. “Something is causing it to run off-balance and my sweet Pepper is having a hard time bearing the load.” 

Dagna scarcely glances at the mare (still supremely unbothered) and lopsided carriage at her hitching post before she responds. “Oh, that’s easy. One of your suspension springs wasn’t heat-treated properly and snapped under your weight in the colder spring weather.” 

That was… surprisingly close to the truth, though the heat treatment in question had involved a lot of blowtorching and frost spells and Sera jumping up and down on the seat while swearing about the difficulty of doing her job when their employers insisted on purchasing shocks of the finest Nevarran steel. Abruptly Bull remembered that his character was meant to be marveling at Dagna’s prowess out loud and exclaimed “Fantastic! You can tell all that just from how the carriage is sitting?”

“Oh, sure.” He was losing her. “Anyways, there’s a carriage shop down the road. I’m sure even Pepper can make it there without too much trouble.” Dagna turns away to jot down the address, apparently entirely satisfied with their interaction. 

Pepper snorts into her feed bag. Yeah, Bull thinks, palming one of the pens and slipping it into a hidden pocket as he exits the storefront, they’re going to need a better plan.


	7. In Which A Door Closes and A Window Opens

It is common practice, as a thief living among thieves, to check over one's belongings on a fairly regular basis. Dorian knows even his most esoteric kits off by heart, and could tell if so much as a single flange were loosened in his distillation apparatus. It’s quite unusual, however, for a thief to have _added_ a foreign object to his collection. He turns the mysterious pen over in his hands, feeling its smooth glass barrel, inspecting the seemingly ordinary cartridge, which uses ordinary fountain ink. 

There is the faint whiff of ozone that accompanies many arcane objects when Dorian lifts the pen to his nose, and he can feel a tiny flare of magic glyphs when he inspects it using his own power.

Vivienne is the only other mage in the building, but this has nothing of her about it. It’s not her style, nor her area of expertise, to create something like this, and while she is a generous friend she enjoys being thanked in person when she gives a gift, and values her own privacy far too much to violate his, even in such an innocuous way. 

If Sera was to give him a gift, it would come with sarcasm and rude implications. Likewise, the move seems too shy for the Iron Bull, but Dorian does rather hope it was him.

\---

Bull can’t act as driver, since Dagna has already seen him as Ataash, so with Sera as their driver, decked out in an impressive livery, drives him and Vivienne into town. They come from the direction opposite the one Bull had taken.

Sera opens the door for Madame de Fer with a sarcastic expression, and doesn’t bother to offer either of them her hand as they alight from the carriage. As the three of them stand outside, she peers through the windows of the shop with undisguised interest.

“Just trying to see how she treats her folk,” she tells Dorian. “Seems clean inside, doesn’t look more dangerous than messing with magic usually does.”

“Keep your head down,” he mutters.

“Yes, ser,” she snipes. “I’m going to see if there’s any open windows I can squeeze through.”

She slides away, and Dorian opens the door for Vivienne.

It’s his intent to stay by her side until they can determine which of them might have a better chance of ensnaring Mistress Smith’s attentions, but he is quickly distracted by the incredible array of magitechnical industry occurring in the workshop.

The hum of enchantment calls him over, and he watches with interest as a young elvish woman etches a glowing rune onto the back of a statue’s head. Its eyes blink once, glowing the same pale green. Dorian shivers, and makes a note of how many other statues are watching him right now.

He’s used to looking innocuous, so he keeps his posture relaxed and his expression excited as he wanders about. That part, at least, is not difficult at all. It’s magical here, in a way that few places this far south seem to be. He could imagine, if he closes his eyes and focuses only on the feeling of the air, that he is back in his own home-- well, when it had been his own.

The elf is not the only one there, and he meanders along, wholly wrapped up in the feeling of being surrounded by someone else’s magic. It’s far more constructed than a mage’s. It would have to be, as Mistress Smith is a dwarf, direct from Orzammar if the rumors are to be believed, with no heritage from the more magically-inclined surface types. It’s admirable, he thinks, that her creations are not only functional but accessible to anyone, regardless of inborn magical skill. It’s so deliciously counter to the Imperium’s teachings that he finds it immediately endearing. 

It’s his thief’s instincts, and not his mage’s, that guide him quietly to the back of the shop, skirting a politely wide radius around anyone engaged in precise magical work. There’s a slightly open door with a light blue light spilling out from under it and Dorian simply has to know what lies behind it.

He sidles up to it, and finds it only leads into the alley behind the shop. He steps through, and sees that the light comes from a glowing bulb suspended over the door, which he quickly identifies as another security measure when the amulet he wears under his shirt begins to warm and pulses lightly in tandem with the bulb.

The door swings shut behind him, and doesn’t budge when he gives it a quick tug.

He hears footsteps and voices approaching. Dorian snaps his fingers an inch in front of his sternum, completing the glyph he has developed to always be one step away from activating.

As if he is being plunged face-first into a pool of icy water, his magic engulfs him. He holds his breath, clenching his fist over his heart and focusing on keeping the spell intact as the two people round the corner into view, his vision altered and slightly dreamlike as Dorian watches them from the un-space he is occupying. 

It’s Sera and a dwarf Dorian believes may in fact be Mistress Smith. Sera is listening with rapt attention as Dagna Smith describes something she seems to be working on. The flying machine, perhaps?

“Wait here,” Mistress Smith tells Sera. “This entrance is really just staff only, but give me a moment and I’ll get something for that injury.”

She unlocks the door and steps inside. Sera leans against the wall, grinning to herself.

Dorian lets his breath out and reappears. “Nice work,” he says.

Sera yelps and almost falls over. “Where the fuck did you come from!”

“Trick of the trade.” Dorian takes a moment, trying to slow his racing heart without showing it. “Good touch, telling her you’re injured. Sympathy is always a good way in.”

“No, I really fucked up.” Sera shows him her arm, which she’s somehow burned so badly that her sleeve is torn and scorched. “I was trying to get through the storage shed window, but there was this… thing. Didn’t see it too well before I was on my arse back outside. Went back to the carriage, _she_ saw me, and I guess she believed whatever yarn I spun about a nail in the driver’s seat.”

“Good, good. If you can get her to bandage your arm herself, even better. But please remember not to swear at her, even if it hurts. You can’t abuse her kindness if you’re going to get closer to her.”

“Me?” Sera squeaks. “No, I brought you nobs on so that I _wouldn’t_ have to be a face man! _You_ get closer to her, not me!”

“You’ve already endeared yourself to her-- more than our friend Bull managed to, at least.” Dorian is aware they don’t have much more time before Mistress Smith returns. “All you have to do right now is invite her to the chateau as repayment for her kindness. Everything will be just fine-- we’ll come up with a cover story for you tonight.”

He hears the doorknob begin to turn and snaps his fingers again. Sera makes a grab for the spot where he had just stood, but it’s as ineffectual as any time the Orlesian Guard has tried the same maneuver. 

She recovers herself admirably by the time Mistress Smith comes back out, and Dorian hopes her expression will be chalked up to the pain. When the ruined sleeve is pulled back, the injury does look quite painful. Dorian holds the spell, willing them to finish and move along before the strain gets too great. Though his claim to fame is vanishing into thin air, he’s never managed to move through it, and he’s never stayed in the un-space for more than a minute or two at a time. 

Mistress Smith is not rough as she spreads some sort of salve on the burn, but her hands are brisk and confident as she wraps a clean white bandage around the oozing burn. Sera does an excellent job of looking besotted, and stumbles over her thanks in only a slightly awkward way. Mistress Smith takes it in stride, making Sera promise to keep the burn covered and looked after, and offers to sort out the offending nail herself, though Sera deflects the offer well enough.

Just before the door closes behind her again, Mistress Smith turns and smiles up at Sera. “Please do come back and tell me how it heals up,” she says. “It’d be a shame to know the pipes on my shed window marred someone so lovely.” She disappears into the shop before Sera can respond.

Dorian releases the spell again and Sera drops to the ground with a moan. The back of his neck is unpleasantly hot and sticky after using it twice in such quick succession. He quickly wipes his sweaty palms off on his breeches before offering Sera a hand up. 

“This is a terrible idea,” she tells him, grabbing his wrist with her good arm and allowing herself to be hauled back to her feet. 

“You’ll be fine, just be yourself. What could be easier?” 

“You tell me, Monsieur _Renard_.” Dorian supposes he deserved that.


	8. In Which Identities Are Constructed

“It’s a good idea,” Bull says. Sera shakes her head again as Madame de Fer holds her arm still and checks it over.

“It’s not,” Sera insists.

“Well, continuing on this path is certainly a better plan than abandoning it and starting again. Especially since Mademoiselle Smith now knows nearly all of our faces one way or another.” Vivienne’s healing magic has a soft green glow to it. It’s probably a comforting color, but unfortunately Sera seems as uncomfortable with magic as Bull himself is. He focuses on mending one of his nicer sheer stockings to avoid repeatedly wincing in sympathy. “Really, darling,” Vivienne continues, “how _did_ you do this?”

“I jimmied open a window on a shed, and I got my head and one arm through, and bam! Friggin steam and hot pipes and glowy blue shite!”

“Hm.” 

“Could it be lyrium?” Monsieur Renard asks. He’s sprawled over the loveseat under the window, his legs over one arm and his head practically hanging off the front as he consults his notebook. Bull has been very aware of his every movement. It wouldn’t be ideal if both of their thieves got injured in one day, after all. And M. Renard has such a nice face, it would be a shame if he fell on it.

Sera snorts. “Not likely. I’m not barmy yet, am I? Besides, Dag-- Miss Smith doesn’t seem the sort to leave dangerous magic shite lying about where it could hurt her folk.”

“Not moreso than usual,” Vivienne concurs. “And I too find it hard to believe there would be unshielded lyrium in a reputable shop this far south.” 

“Did it seem like she’d say yes if you asked her to accompany you on a picnic?” Bull tries to keep his eyes on his own darning, rather than on the curve of M. Renard’s shoulders. “I don’t know that we can pass this place off as your home and us as your staff.”

“Ugh,” Sera and Madame de Fer say, in almost exactly the same tone.

“A picnic’s a good idea,” M. Renard pipes up. “Maybe she can show you her flying machine.”

“Or you can show her yours,” Bull adds when it seems like neither of the ladies will be taking M. Renard up on the double entendre. It wins him an upside-down smirk. 

“I work different than you lot,” Sera complains to Vivienne, ignoring them. “I don’t talk to the people I’m stealing from, I talk to their servants, and coachmen, and the kids they hire to clean their chimneys. I don’t _con_ marks. I, ...you know. I just mark them.”

“You’re a smart young lady, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” The magic glow fades from Vivienne’s hands and she stands. “Now, please excuse me, darlings. I haven’t been trapped in a shop and forced to buy so many knicknacks in years, and I really do require a bath.”

“And if you don’t do it, this will all have been for nothing, so… no pressure,” M. Renard finishes for her. Sera sticks her tongue out at him, and then at Mme. Vivienne’s retreating back for good measure. Monsieur Renard seems far too entranced by his ability to make notes upside-down on the loveseat to be bothered. 

She turns to Bull. “How do I do it, then? Where ’m I s’posed to be from?”

“You can be from wherever you usually tell people you’re from,” Bull says, trying to be encouraging. “It’s more about not saying why you’re here now, and just letting her talk. I’m sure she’s excited about her machine being shown at the Fair, and it’s perfectly natural for you to be excited about that as well.”

Sera looks a little comforted.

“And practically everyone who isn’t nobility has a boss. She mostly works for herself, but I’d bet there’s some bureaucrat or customs official that she’d love to complain about. You know how to get people talking about that sort of thing.”

“But what if she asks me about _me_? I can’t do accents or have as many fancy clothes as you.”

“I do it my way,” Bull agrees. “I was trained to be embedded and keep up a full disguise even when sleeping in the same room as a target. You don’t have to do that. This will just be a few afternoons of looking interested in impenetrable scientific prattle.”

“I can help you practice that part,” M. Renard offers. “My scientific prattle is the most impenetrable in the land. Right now, I’m trying to calculate just how much actual powdered emerald I’ll need to add to a suspension of distilled lyrium and bismuth subsalicylate for proper light refraction in the inclusions--”

“Pfft, I know all that science shite. What if she asks me if I have any pets?”

“Do you?” Bull asks reasonably. 

“Just you lot, but I think that’s probably the wrong answer.” 

M. Renard chuckles. “You might want to try a touching story about your childhood hound, Cleo, instead.” 

“Who’s Cleo?” 

“Your beloved childhood--” M. Renard sighs. “Just make something up. Mistress Smith just wants to know she’s talking to a caring, normal person. You’ll be fine. You’ve already taken an interest in her ‘impenetrable scientific prattle.’” He shoots a glare at Bull. 

Bull shrugs. “If you want, I can stay nearby when you go to talk to her. If it all goes completely to shit, I’ll just hit her on the head and we’ll keep her in the cellar until this is all done.”

“Monsieur!” M. Renard flips himself off the couch and onto his feet. “This is one of the greatest scientific minds of our Age!”

“Right, that’s why we’re not killing her,” Bull feels this is a reasonable backup plan. 

“What if you give her a concussion? Or some sort of lasting brain injury?” He looks about ready to throw his notebook in Bull’s face, and Sera looks equally scandalized. 

Bull sighs deeply. “Okay, plan C. I’ll _carefully tackle_ the leading scientific mind of our generation, and _delicately_ tie her up in the wine cellar, taking great care not to hit her on the head if such a thing should prove necessary. 

Sera points at him threateningly with her good hand. “No kidnapping,” she tells Bull.

“Just conning her and pinning a crime on her that will probably be punished with execution,” Bull says. “But sure. No kidnapping, and no brain injuries. Got it, boss.”

Sera stews quietly for the rest of the evening, and leaves for bed before Bull has even finished repairing the run near the heel of his stocking. Monsieur Renard, however, stays awake, watching Bull over the arm of the loveseat and making occasional perfunctory notes. 

“Were you really trained for long term con jobs like that?” He asks softly as the embers in the fireplace begin to burn low. 

Bull nods. “And I was good at it, too.”

M. Renard puts down his notebook. “How young were you when you started?”

Bull knows what he tells people, when they ask about his past, but he attempts to do Monsieur Renard the courtesy of the truth, as difficult as it is for him to recall it sometimes. “I don’t really know how to answer that. As young as I can remember, probably. A lot of the war orphans in Par Vollen were taken in from birth and trained for it.” 

He considers leaving out the next part, but he’s come this far already, and it’s not as if he gets many opportunities to talk about it. “I don’t actually have a real name, you know. Not legally. It’s considered a liability, in the program. To have a traceable history like that. People who know you from family, or work or whatever.” 

“You chose your own name?”

“Yeah, once I’d been working on my own long enough to feel like I should have one. People I wasn’t conning, like my tailor, members of my crew, thought it was easier.”

“It suits you,” M. Renard says. 

Bull considers him-- his expression, the tilt of his head where it’s propped up on his hand-- and wonders if he can press back enough to get a few answers of his own. “So does yours.”

Monsieur Renard takes a long moment formulating his response. “Did you have any pets?” He asks at last. “Growing up?”

“A very sweet hound named Cleo,” Bull says with a grin, but M. Renard doesn’t return it. “Any other burning questions?”

“Yes,” M. Renard says, but he doesn’t ask any more.

Bull finishes the stocking, and they sit. The sun has set outside and the fireplace will be dark before long.


	9. In Which A Courtship Begins

Bull is able to talk Sera into a rather dashing suit, although she complains it’s too fancy for the daytime. Still, the fine midnight blue wool and its matching fawn waistcoat set off Sera’s slightly pink features nicely, and she doesn’t deliberately cover the material in mustard stains--and Dorian has lived with the cautious, precise woman long enough now to realize that most of her apparent sloppiness and disorganization is indeed deliberate. He’s not entirely certain what to make of it. 

Frankly, he’d hoped to beg off date observation detail. Watching someone else enjoy a romantic afternoon, even under false pretenses, is not Dorian’s ideal way to spend his time at the chateau. 

However, he is currently working on the first prototype of his disappearing gemstone, and while it _had_ been quite labor intensive, the next step of its crystallization process requires very little actual interference, leaving him with no excuse not to go.

Madame Vivienne, of course, had swanned off to visit her Bastien on this rare free night, leaving him and the Iron Bull to it. 

Just as they’d hoped, Mistress Smith is glad to see Sera again a few days later, and praises Vivienne’s healing skills. Dorian waits in the carriage, ginning to himself, as Sera expresses genuine-sounding interest in seeing Mistress Smith’s flying machine. It all seems to be going very well.

The size of it is more intimidating than Dorian had expected, though he has seen some of the etchings in the papers. It takes off and lands in a clear, flattened field, and from a distance it gives the impression much more of a small boat than a large carriage. Or perhaps a large open carriage with a perilously thin window frame to keep its passengers from tumbling out into open space. 

It is topped by something not unlike a large canvas bubble embroidered with an intricate spherical glyph, secured to the carriage with braided iron cables that seems to account for at least some of its ability to rise into the air, though Dorian doubts that the large motor and batlike wings on the sides are entirely for show.

It is utterly terrifying to contemplate setting foot in such a contraption.

When they first take off, Dorian feels his own stomach lurch in sympathy as the machine jolts into the air foot by foot. As it clears tree-top level, however, its flight evens out and Mistress Smith navigates a gentle figure eight before climbing slowly higher. Dorian can hear Sera whooping from his spot on the ground.

“Not your thing, huh?” Dorian’s skin prickles with renewed awareness of the Iron Bull’s presence. They’re crowded close in this copse of trees, sheltering from any possible overhead views. 

“Is hurtling through the air in an untested deathmobile anyone’s ‘thing?’” Dorian retorts. 

Bull says nothing, just tilts a horn in the direction of the joyful shrieks still coming from the air above them, smirking. 

Dorian sighs. “Okay, so it’s Sera’s thing. Or at least whoever Sera is pretending to be right now. Still not mine. I’d prefer a nice, steady coach with an unspookable horse.”

“Predictability over innovation,” Bull remarks. “From you of all people.” 

“Oh, I can be quite innovative, I assure you. I just need to be… properly motivated.” 

Bull gives a soft grunt of understanding, but doesn’t press the issue further. He is wearing a scarlet overcoat and waistcoat to accent cream-colored trousers, an odd choice for hiding amongst the trees as they are.

“Who’s this?” Dorian asks, gesturing to the Bull’s ensemble. “The person I’m talking to right now?”

“Hm?” Bull looks surprised at the question but recovers quickly. “Caelan MacBrye of Viscount Tethras’s hunt, at your service,” he says, adopting a rough Free Marches borgue. Dorian wonders what Bull’s real voice sounds like--certainly not the Orlesian lilt he has heard slip a couple of times, now that he’s listening for it. “I’m afraid we lost one of the master’s prize foxhounds in the brush today, and I cannae rest until I find her. Poor girl must be frightened half to death, far from the pack as she is.” 

Dorian covers a smile by turning up to look at the flying machine again. “You know Lord Tethras is Viscount of Kirkwall and not Starkhaven,” 

Bull shrugs one massive shoulder, lowering his brogue to more understandable levels. “I do, but Orlesians don’t. And if one asks, I’ll just tell them the best hounds come from Starkhaven. My Kirkwaller isn’t all that convincing, and the Lady of Starkhaven only hunts in her own country.” 

“So if you’re...Cormac or whoever right now,” Bull nods encouragingly though Dorian knows he got the name wrong, “you’re not Bull.” 

“I’m Bull with you,” he replies quietly, brogue trailing off. He clears his throat. “With the crew, I mean.”

“I know,” Dorian didn’t, actually, not with certainty, “But what does Bull wear to an afternoon out to watch the sunset?”

“Looser trousers than this,” Bill says immediately. “Maybe a nice riding skirt. Not everywhere is obsessed with the musculature of a man’s calf, you know. Well, I guess you would know, Vint, but it’s the principle of the thing. I like to leave a little to the imagination, sometimes, or wear something that drapes so my knee brace doesn’t interrupt the line of my leg.”

Dorian can’t help but laugh. “And earlier you teased me for wanting to be comfortable.” 

“Everyone wants to be comfortable,” Bull says, still smiling. His voice is rougher now, with a huskiness Dorian hasn’t heard in it before. “It’s just sometimes you have to choose between being comfortable with yourself, and making other people comfortable with you.” 

“I know far more than I’d like to about that,” Dorian admits. “Sometimes you get lucky though, and find someone who doesn’t make you choose.” Their shoulders brush as he points up at the flying machine, gradually circling back to earth. They are close enough now that they can see Sera and Dagna, their collars askew and cheeks pinked by the wind, Sera gripping tight to Dagna’s hand all the way down.


	10. In Which An Honest Conversation Occurs In A Garden

Bull is enjoying the chance to garden again. He’d spent three months on a farm in eastern Nevarra a few years back, and in between watching the road for suspicious messengers, he’d had a great time learning about the way Nevarran agriculture worked. The soil here is warmer, more forgiving, than the hard Nevarran gley. Bull likes the feel of it between his fingers, likes being in one place long enough to watch a thing grow. 

He doubts he will be in the chateau long enough to see his peashoots to bear pods, but they might blossom before he leaves if he’s lucky. It’s bittersweet, thinking of the thing he has tended being harvested by someone else. Still, the shoots are climbing now, and just a few days of flowers would be beautiful. 

Sera is busily preparing some sort of chemical fluid she swears is part of a romantic overture in her private lab, and Bull’s mage, whatever his real name might be, is holed up in his own, in the final stages of attempting to replicate the Heart’s green inclusions in his first prototype. The house is quiet without them, and as harried as he has been assisting with the con, Bull has always been the sort that’s fond of a noisy house. Perhaps that’s why he’s felt so off-kilter these past few days.

He’s taking the afternoon for himself. No mending or cleaning of clothes, no vocal exercises or accent practice, just a walk along the stream and some time with his hands in the dirt. Sera is cooking dinner tonight, Koslun help them. 

Madame de Fer has brought some reading material outside and is ostensibly keeping him company. Privately, Bull thinks she’s pining a little. Her visits to Bastien often leave her wistful. In the city, her return from Bastien’s country estate would almost always occasion inviting Bull over for tea four or even five days in a row. Here, it seems to have translated into sitting quietly in the sun and browsing the society pages, commenting on the marriage announcements with uncommon sweetness. 

“Do you ever see yourself settling down, ma’am?” Bull breaks their unwritten pact to dance around this topic, using the excuse of pruning some basil to avoid looking Vivienne in the eyes as he does. 

“Some day,” she says vaguely. “Perhaps once I can no longer climb out of a third story window in heels and an evening gown.”

“Would you open a school for young girls? Teach them to be fine ladies like yourself?”

“There are no fine ladies like myself,” Vivienne scoffs. Bull waits patiently, and is rewarded when she continues, “but I might find it in my heart to adopt an orphan or two, raise them up in the world, teach them to pick locks with hairpins, that sort of thing. Bastien would teach them about art, of course, but he’s far too honest to teach them about forgery. We’d have to outsource that bit of training to their Uncle Renard.” 

Bull nods. He can see it. “You could write memoirs.”

“Perhaps I have already.” Vivienne shakes out the paper and turns to the births and naming ceremonies section. “They’d only be published on my dear Bastien’s death, of course, but they’d be quite salacious.”

“Not your own?”

“I can take care of myself. He’s just a civilian. The poor sweet man has no idea how to fake his own death.” 

“I’d bet if you asked him to, he’d figure it out well enough. He’s a smart guy.”

“He’s brilliant,” Madame de Fer interjects. “And yes, he would. But just as he would not ask me to give up my...interests, I would not ask him to forgo the joys of a normal life.” She sounds wistful at that last. 

“I admire you two,” Bull tells the carrots. “I know it’s not easy, but it’s impressive how you’ve made it work so well.”

“The key is mutual respect, darling. And sufficient independent wealth to maintain numerous residences, both on and off the books.” She softens momentarily. “What’s gotten you so interested in how I manage my personal life, dear?” 

Bull takes his time choosing his words. They come out sounding less Orlesian than usual. “Just looking at...Sera, how she’s trying to manage it. She’s putting on a good show, but she’s obviously already let, uh, Dagna further under her skin than she was ready for.”

He feels Vivienne’s eyes on him, but she lets the statement pass unchallenged. “You think that Mademoiselle Smith would be best served by attaching herself to someone not in the life?” 

Bull clears his throat. “Well, considering the current plan is to steal her invention and use it to frame her for a huge crime, yeah, but also… I mean, Monsieur Renard has expressed his admiration for a relationship like yours, also. Wouldn’t he--Mistress Smith, I mean-- Wouldn’t someone like that, with a once in a generation mind, someone who knows _exactly_ who they are, and isn’t afraid of upsetting--” he clears his throat. “Well. Don’t you think they deserve some slice of normal life to come home to?” 

Vivienne smiles into her teacup. “I will admit to falling in love with a beautifully ordinary man, brilliant, of course, in all respects, but...quite normal, all the same. I will even admit, in confidence to you and no one else, that there are times I regret not allowing him to sweep me away into that conventionality.” 

Bull concentrates on thinning the carrots; only so many things can take root in one place.

“There is no pleasure that I find greater than being able to come home to an ordinary life.” She folds the paper shut, careful to leave the folds neat and crisp, even where they weren’t before. “But people like us would never enjoy staying there permanently. Some of us aren’t interested in visiting at all.” 

Bull nods, placing the thinned baby carrots into a basket. He might steam them with fish tomorrow. His eye feels a bit hot, though the day is mild. 

“What I am trying to tell you, darling, is that Mademoiselle Smith, Bastien, and anyone else with a ‘once in a generation mind’ for that matter, is clever enough to choose on their own the sort of life they most want to come home to.” He is not ashamed to admit Madame de Fer can sneak up on him quite easily, should she wish it. He startles a little when he feels her ungloved hand on his arm. “And a couple of popinjay mountebanks of all people have no right to decide whether or not that choice is proper for them. We just have to trust that they know.”

Bull nods silently, the accent stuck on his tongue. 

There is a loud bang as a laboratory door slams in the basement. 

“I should go see to that,” Vivienne says, “I shudder to think what dinner Sera might concoct without adult assistance.” 

She passes into the house silent as a ghost, leaving Bull alone to tend the delicate shoots he planted in the garden. 

Well, almost alone. 

“So _Oswald_ ,” a familiar voice says, “You’re a con man too?” Dagna Smith pushes herself off a hidden edge of the garden wall, a smirk from ear to ear. “Fascinating.”


	11. In Which an Honest Conversation Occurs in a Laboratory

Dorian jumps clear out of his skin as Sera bursts into his lab. She slams the door behind her and sags against the wall, face in her hands.

Gingerly, Dorian puts down the chisel he was about to use to test the strength of his prototype gem. Just as gingerly, he crouches down in front of her and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you quite all right?”

“I can’t do it anymore!” Sera tells him. “I can’t keep pulling a sodding con when--” she presses her face to her hands and her hands to her knees, creating a rumpled sort of thief-ball. 

“You fell for the mark,” Dorian realizes. “Actually fell for her.” 

“It’s your fault!” Sera moans. “I told you I don’t do this part! All these… _feelings_ and listening to her talk about her dreams and-- and shit.” She curls up tighter, but doesn’t shove Dorian’s arm away, which he takes to mean the gesture is welcome. 

“She certainly seems like quite the girl,” Dorian says lamely. 

“Sod off. She’s incredible, and I’m lying to her every time I open my stupid mouth.”

“Well, not every time,” Dorian tries, “I mean, it seems you were telling the truth about wanting to court her. Perhaps we can--”

“No,” Sera says venomously. 

“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say,” Dorian argues.

“You were going to tell me how we can fix it, and still do the stupid con. We can’t fix it. The con is ruined, because I’m not going to let it ruin _her_. The stupid heart is just a rock. The elves can hang.”

“What I was _going_ to say,” Dorian says, carefully not following his instincts to rub Sera’s back in a comforting manner, “Is perhaps we can conduct the heist without a flying machine. Surely we can steal a jewel the old fashioned way, just this once.”

“But then who do we pin it on? That’s part of the deal, laying a trail away from the sodding elves.”

Dorian considers for a moment, teeth pressed into lower lip. “Dagna-- do you love her? Properly adore her, I mean.” 

Sera kicks Dorian’s cistern of deionized water over from its stand, which is certainly not a no.

“We could pin it on you.” Sera looks sharply at him, but since Dorian hasn’t been stabbed yet, he’s going to assume the look is not a no, either. “There’s plenty of Red Jennies running about in Orlais who could take up running the show. I’ve staged a death or two, and Monsieur the Iron Bull has done more than that. Red Jenny the First goes out in a blaze of glory, Sera sets up as the inventor’s mystery paramour. You get to tell the truth and we all still get paid.”

Sera punches him viciously in the arm. Dorian chances a look over to find her smiling. “That’s so fucking stupid it might work out.” 

A polite knock at the door sends Sera shooting under a bench for cover and Dorian snapping himself into his invisible un-space.

“Pardon me,” calls Vivienne. “I think it’s high time I join this conversation.”

With as much dignity as he can muster, Dorian releases the spell and opens the door.

“Thank you darling.” She steps into the room as Sera hops casually on top of the bench instead. “Before I address… all of that, I would like to remind the two of you of one of the most crucial elements of this plan, and why the _four_ of us agreed to the current course of action. A course of action that Sera came up with, need I add?”

“We were going to come find you--” Dorian begins.

Vivienne continues as if he never opened his mouth. “The path that the transport will be taking is not only under constant supervision, likely at this very moment, it could be one of five different routes, with decoys on each. We need the flying machine so that we can assess each potential target and then follow the actual Heart! Framing young Mistress Smith is a secondary goal. The primary objective is stealing the damned thing.”

“Oh, sod off Vivvy,” Sera says. Dorian is slightly shocked she doesn’t turn to ice on the spot. “We don’t need a flying machine for that, we just need someone who knows the real route. You and Bull can pick up some idiot at one of the fancy fair parties to tell you that.” 

“And how do you propose to get a band of four highly recognizable thieves into one of the worlds fair balls without attracting attention?” Dorian suspects Vivienne has an answer in mind already, and is simply allowing Sera to come to the same conclusion on her own. 

“We could go as waitstaff, or--” Sera pauses. They can’t speak to guests as staff, she knows it better than anyone. “We could steal…” The invitations are personalized and checked against a privately held list, Dorian knows. He has already wasted a great deal of his best gold inks forging one that wound up being worthless. “...Dagna.” Sera says at last. She straightens herself to her full height atop Dorian’s lab bench, bringing her only a handful of inches higher than Madame in heels. “We bring Dagna in on it, and she can get us in. She’s the star inventor, we can go as her guests.” 

“Brilliant,” Vivienne says. “Now you just need to gently let her know about the job, see if you can bring her in on it. 

“Oh, she’s in on it,” Dagna announces through the doorway, face shrouded in the hall’s shadow. She ruins the effect by giggling a bit. “Sorry, I just can’t believe I got to do that twice in the same afternoon.” 

“Pardon me, Ma’am,” Bull says from behind her. “There was a bit of a situation and I had to make a judgement call.”

“Not at all, darling. In fact, your timing is impeccable.”


	12. In Which Measures Are Taken

After several hours of amendments, the new plan is this: they will infiltrate the fair’s opening ball as Dagna’s guests, and attempt to woo the head of the prestigious Nevarran military contractors that have been entrusted with supplementing Orlesian security, a woman Bull has only seen frowning in the background of a few society etchings. One of them, likely Vivienne or Bull himself, will talk her into revealing something that will key them in to the real route. 

Bull finds himself mirroring her frown as he squints at the lithograph. “What do you think, Ma’am?” 

Vivienne looks at the Brigadier-General contemplatively. “She’s a fighter. You can see how she plants herself on the floor, ready to draw a sword at any moment.” 

Bull squints harder. Perhaps a third of the woman is even visible. “She just looks bored at a social event to me. She’s a Pentaghast right? She’d probably rather be out slaying a dragon.”

“Yes, darling,” Vivienne says with an air of great patience. “Thats _why_ she wants to hit her fellow guests with a sword.” 

“Mmm.” Wallflowers are a bit tricky to grift, in Bull’s experience. Some were just waiting to be pulled into the center of the dance while others would shut down if you so much as bowed to them too quickly. He was a bit worried that General Pentaghast’s shutdowns would include more than a curt exchange of words. “Is she a _Pentaghast_ Pentaghast?”

Vienne gives him a sly look. “Indeed she is, which is why I think you should be the one to talk to her. I believe she would appreciate meeting a friend also out of their element in an extravagant gala. Perhaps a mild-mannered professor interested not in her royal connections but in her family’s history.”

“Oh really?” Bull asks.

“You know, I heard that there’s a new lecturer at the Ostagar Academy of Science. He spent years in the field researching the dragon populations of the western Anderfels, and he’s quite the decent addition to the department of Natural Sciences. A quiet man, though. He prefers to stand back and let his ladylove do the talking.”

“His what now?”

“Mistress Dagna is allowed one guest. The rest of us can sneak in or watch from the rooftops. If you are the one to talk to General Pentaghast, you must be legitimized.”

Sera decides to join the conversation by climbing in through the library window. “Don’t like it.” She gallantly offers her hand to Dagna to help her in as well.

Vivienne sips her tea. “It’s only for one night, darling.”

That doesn’t seem to mollify her.

“It makes sense.” Monsieur Renard was apparently also outside the window, but a different one, and he just leans partially through it, leaving most of his body on the balcony above. Bull has been living in a house of thieves for weeks now, but it can still be nerve-wracking to see that so starkly demonstrated. “The more we can do to confuse the trail, the better. And since Monsieur Bull is not part of the actual extraction, he and Mistress Smith can share the plausible deniability.”

Sera kicks her heels and sulks.

“But if Monsieur Bull and I do attend together-- _if_ , Sera-- what are we going to wear?”

Bull grins. “That, you can leave to me.”

\---

It takes a lot of money to get a tailor like Krem to drop all his commissions and commit his workshop to making five unique ensembles with essentially no notice. Luckily, they’ve got plenty of that, even with Bull’s steadfast refusal to take Krem up on his friends and family discount.

He kisses Madame Vivienne’s hand and shakes hands with the others, clearly fascinated by the little household Bull’s created. He’s Bull’s tailor, though, Bull’s friend, so he keeps his questions until they’re alone.

Bull does check outside the window-- both above and below-- before he pours them each a finger of whiskey and Krem takes out his measuring tape. He can probably rattle off Bull’s inseam and the diameter of his neck off the top of his head, but it’s a little tradition of their and Bull does enjoy it.

“I’m not asking what you’re doing,” Krem starts. Bull holds his arms out as he always does. “And I’m not asking if you know what you’re doing either. You’re smart and good at your job. All of them.”

“We are both the Krem de la creme of our professions,” Bull agrees.

Krem ignores him. Jotting down the same numbers he always does. “Do you know who you’re doing this _with_? Because I recognize a couple of those faces out there.”

“Mistress Smith is an enthusiastic partner in this,” Bull tells him. “And Sera hired the rest of us.”

“And I know Madame de Fer, and my business thanks you for it.” Krem runs a hand through his hair. “It’s the other one that I’m worried about, chief, and you know it.”

Bull sighs. He does know. “He’s also very good at his job.”

“Do you know who he is?” Krem asks, wrapping the measuring tape around Bull’s left wrist. “Really know? Because I think I do, and it’s not good.”

“I know who he says he is. Who he was before doesn’t matter. And it won’t matter after, either. This is a big job, Krem, maybe _the biggest._ If we pull this off, it won’t matter who any of us were. We can be anyone at all after.”

“Yeah? And who do you want to be, Chief? Another Orlesian? An Antivan on diplomatic errands? Some new ex-military gentleman just looking for a lady love? Because you’ve done all that before, and more. And it hasn’t helped you.” The measuring cord Krem is rolling back up is the same color as pea flowers. 

“A gardener?” Bull says. “Someone with a home.”

“Oh, Chief.” Krem sighs. “You have a home here. Me and the boys would do anything for you.” Bull feels Krem’s hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s not-- You know I love you, I love the guys, it’s just not--” 

“I know,” Krem says softly. “You’re right. It’s not the same.” He breathes deeply, and pauses in his tidying to pour them both another drink. It’s not a proper, mannered service. Krem has never treated him like a guest, and Bull has always appreciated that. Always known what it means. 

Bull takes the drink, looks out at the stars. They’re much less bright this close to the city. When he was younger he never thought he’d pine for a more rural life.

“If you know his name,” Bull says, “don’t tell me.”

Krem looks surprised. “You really haven’t looked into him at all?”

“He’ll tell me himself when he’s ready."

“Oh,” Krem says softly, “I see.”

“Better than I do,” Bull answers, gesturing to his eyepatch. It’s only half a joke.

“Fuck you,” Krem laughs, then sobers again. “So this is it, then. The great Iron Bull finally retires.”

Bull takes an alarmed swig of his drink. “Don’t be fucking stupid, Krem. I could never retire. I just want--” he swallows. “I want something to come home to.”


	13. In Which a Troubled Heart is Put Right

Dorian simply does not have the time to be distracted by the tailor’s arrival. While under other circumstances he would love to talk color and fit with an expert-- as well as talk to someone who clearly knows the Iron Bull quite well-- he is forced to leave that in the others’ hands and ensconce himself in his laboratory.

The replica is not progressing well.

The shape is acceptable. He purposefully encouraged a larger formation so that he would have some leeway to shave and polish it down. The color is nearly spot-on and attractively luminescent. 

The trouble is, as he feared, the magical signature. It simply _screams_ artificial. More than that, the damned thing recognizes him. His fingerprints are all over it, and when he gets within a foot or two, it responds with a visible veilfire effect.

It’s intriguing, and Dorian looks forward to exploring the full cause of it later on, but it is a miserable failure for this particular job. 

“Is it supposed to do that?” he hears the Iron Bull ask from behind him. The door is open, but he hasn’t come through.

“No,” Dorian mutters. He waves his hand over the jewel, watching the magic inside flicker and react. It seems to reach toward his fingers as they brush the faceted surface, then gutter like flames in a stiff breeze. Dorian starts, alarmed, and checks his pocket watch. “Am I late for something?”

“Not that I know of.” Bull comes a few steps closer. “Krem’s packed up and ready to leave after breakfast. And that’s an hour or so away, yet. Have you slept?”

“Of course,” Dorian scoffs. He runs a hand through his hair. He has, hasn’t he?

“This past night?”

Hm. “I’ve been busy.”

The look Bull puts on would be severe, if Dorian hadn’t seen him direct it towards a torn glove the other day. Instead, he finds it endearing. He’d like to touch the furrow in Bull’s brow and smooth it away.

Dorian sighs and explains himself. “If I don’t get this jewel right, this whole scheme will implode. After this I have one chance. If the second try goes wrong as well, this will all have been for nothing.”

“Catastrophizing, and scattered thoughts,” Bull says. He comes even closer, forcing Dorian to tilt his head up to continue looking him in the eye. “Glassy eyes. Unsteady physicality. You’re exhausted, Monsieur Renard, and you’re no good to us in this state.”

“I’m perfectly fine, _Monsieur_. I don’t need a nursemaid.” He tries to sound imperious and annoyed, but he’s distracted. For once, Bull is wearing something that seems less than calculated: a soft-looking violet robe over a nightshirt and slippers that do not match at all. “Is it really so late? Why are you awake?”

“The sun’s not up yet,” Bull says. “I walk when I can’t sleep, and I saw the lights on.”

“Your leg bothers you?” Dorian asks, and he must indeed be tired to ask such a baldly personal question.

“Among other things,” Bull answers, not offended. He’s been less guarded with his answers, of late. Dorian has been too busy to know what to make of that. “Where’s your teapot?” 

Dorian glances around the cluttered workshop. He’s grown comfortable here, his coat hung carefully on the back of the door, waistcoat tossed carelessly over a stool hours later.

The tea kettle is sitting on the smallest lab bench, the one Dorian has reserved for his paper forgeries and other things that require fewer toxic chemicals. He heats it to boiling with a flick of a wrist, another comfort he would probably safer not to allow himself. “I have white and green,” he says instead of allowing himself to think about it. “And some herbal blends.”

“No black?” Bull asks, a private sort of smile on his lips.

“Black tea is Southern heresy,” Dorian sniffs. 

Bull’s smile becomes a full smirk. He finds Dorian’s small collection of sealed glass tea containers and selects a blend heavily laden with orange peel and cinnamon. The smell always makes Dorian think of home. He finds two of Dorian’s previously abandoned teacups and washes them in the lab sink, laying out a proper little service for the two of them. 

“You don’t have to--” Dorian begins, though Bull has quite nearly already done it. 

“I want to,” Bull assures him. His voice is a bit rough, accent pulling further north. “Someone ought to take care of you.” 

Dorian closes his eyes, trying not to take the statement too far out of context, only to discover he is swaying on his feet. Bull catches him by the elbow and guides him onto a stool, placing a clean teacup in front of him. 

Bull settles across from him, putting six entire sugar cubes into his teacup, a breach of decorum Dorian has never seen him commit before. They wait for the tea to steep. Dorian knows he should feel overwhelmed with his failure right now, with everything he still has to do, but Bull’s presence steadies him. 

“I’ll have to get back to work after this,” Dorian says listlessly. “I can’t make it work.” 

Bull looks down at the fake Heart. “What’s the trouble with it?”

“I made it _too_ magical,” Dorian groans. “The lyrium reacted too strongly to the solution I used to stimulate the crystal’s growth, and now it’s sparking veilfire near any source of resonant power.”

“Will using less lyrium in the next one solve that?” Bull asks.

Dorian shakes his head. “This is already the minimum possible amount, since the original has some particular crystal lattice formations within it that are at least forty percent concentrated lyrium, in addition to the latent lyral carbonate in the overall makeup of the jewel.”

Bull nods thoughtfully. “Can those formations be made before the rest and then neutralized somehow?”

“Not as easy as it sounds.” Dorian does not enjoy admitting weakness, but that was one of the first things he’d tried and it had ended in a puddle of goopy nothing. “That requires manipulation of the lyrium itself, on a molecular level. Few people in Thedas can do that.”

Bull is looking-- not at the jewel, but at Dorian’s face. Dorian crosses his arms, feeling a bit exposed, then uncrosses them again. His shoulders ache for leaning over the blighted table all night.

“What are the odds Mistress Smith is one of them?”

Dorian could kick himself. He feels his cheeks heating. He’s sure he could figure this out on his own, given just a little more time, and a lot more material. But, he’d said himself how important this step is.

He swallows his pride. “Quite likely.”

Bull nods. “Then we’ll ask her. Once you get some rest.” He stands and puts a careful hand on Dorian’s. His skin is warm and surprisingly soft. Dorian looks at Bull’s hand on his own, then up at Bull’s face. His expression is unguarded, and tired as well. As Dorian tries to think of something clever to say, Bull slowly removes the goggles Dorian had pushed up onto his head hours ago, and the pen he’d carelessly tucked behind his ear clatters to the table. It’s the new one, that seems to not have smudged even his most exhausted and sloppy notetaking.

Dorian watches fuzzily, his exhaustion now making itself aggressively known, as Bull picks it up and slides it into Dorian’s breast pocket. “Just a couple hours, Monsieur Renard,” he says, guiding Dorian into the hallway and shutting off the light in the lab. The fake Heart glows dimmer and dimmer as Dorian gets farther away, until the only light that reaches them is from the stars and the tiniest sliver of a crescent moon, rising in the east.


	14. In Which There Is Only One Bed

Bull gets Monsieur Renard into bed within half an hour, and counts it an accomplishment. He spends the rest of the not-quite-morning strangely wide awake. He writes a couple letters to send along with Krem, and spends some time constructing the type of person who would get along with the famously austere Brigadier-General Pentaghast.

Typically, he prefers to keep his society jobs very well separated, either by time or distance. It’s much easier to disappear as a sailor or a laborer, even a student or a retired soldier, than as a socialite. This occasion is, of course, nowhere near typical, and Bull considers some older grifts that he could afford to burn.

But a fully new man has its advantages as well. The more false leads they can lay, the better, and with the sorts of questions he’ll be asking at the gala, whoever he chooses to be will absolutely come under suspicion.

At breakfast, Krem makes some more notes about Sera’s complexion, Mistress Smith’s favorite colors, and Monsuier Renard’s dislike of druffalo wool. He already has extensive files on Bull and Madame de Fer’s preferences, so Bull gets to sit back and watch someone else be interrogated instead.

He tries not to be too interested in what passes between Krem and Monsieur Renard. Whatever Krem’s suspicions are, Bull suspects that they are correct, but still-- it’s more than professional courtesy that’s kept him from doing outside research, and it’s more than respect for Monsieur Renard’s many daggers that’s kept him from coaxing the answers out directly. There’s a quiet little voice in the back of Bull’s mind telling him this knowledge should be freely given, not teased out like a mark.

So he stays quiet. He waits and watches as their last weeks in the chateau wind down. 

Monsieur Renard clearly hates asking for help, but once he lets Mistress Smith into his lab, they get along like a house on fire. The other three of them are forced to ban enchantment talk from the dinner table, or no one would be able to get a word in edgewise about anything other than titrations and favorite solvents.

Bull starts joining Monsieur Renard in the library most mornings, where he gets treated to a running commentary on the books in the room. Monsieur Renard has little respect for Southern academic authors, but enjoys the stories told by non-Tevinter novelists. He agrees with the chateau’s owner’s tastes in translators, but not in childrens’ books.

Bull also invites him out for walks, but is not surprised when Monsieur Renard does not take him up on the offer. There is much to be done, after all. Still, he wants to make sure the option is there. Monsieur Renard thinks best when he is explaining things out loud, and Bull is conveniently positioned to listen. It’s clear to him that Monsieur Renard is the type of person who thrives on the attention of others. He must have been a terror when he was younger, Bull suspects, and were he not a criminal and a scientist, he could likely have had an impressive career on the stage.

Bull has a sense of some other situations Monsieur Renard would thrive in as well, but the idea of disrupting their working relationship is a bad one on many levels. He keeps those thoughts to himself, and indulges them only when he is out of the chateau and entirely alone.

Three days before they are set to return to the city, he returns from one such walk to find Mistress Smith and Monsieur Renard celebrating their success. They greet him with a glass of champagne, and they are soon joined by Sera and Madame de Fer, carrying cookies and tea.

Sera slides onto the bench next to Mistress Smith, kissing her on the cheek. “Good news, we won’t be bunking together in the city,” she says to Bull and Monsieur Renard.

Monsieur Renard puts on a show of relief. “If there were any part of this plan that seemed utterly doomed, it was that.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad a roommate.” Sera bites sulkily into a cookie.

Madame Vivienne has a well timed polite cough at that, but lets the comment slide. M. Renard simply gives Sera a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Bull contemplates the idea of being able to touch another team member so casually. 

He clenches and unclenches the hand he’d put on M. Renard’s elbow three days ago, and remembers how soft his hair had felt that night in the laboratory. “So who _will_ be bunking together?” 

“I will have my own rooms, of course,” says Vivienne, with no small sense of relish--it seems even sharing a wall with Sera was a bit much for her. “but I think it is doubtful we will find two additional suites. Bastien mentioned that the city is already beginning to fill with tourists.”

“That leaves you and me, big guy,” Bull tells M. Renard. He begins to reach out a hand, then aborts the gesture into a grab for the sugar bowl. He only takes two lumps instead of his preferred six--after all, he is still playing a role. 

\---

Val Royeaux sparkles at night. Candles, electric bulbs, and magical lights refract off glass and water, magnifying the brightness. Monsieur Renard pulls the curtains on their window shut with a bit more force than Bull thinks is necessary.

“Sorry,” he says, flushing as he realizes the weft of the curtains has been tugged out of place. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve been so… exposed. In a city.” 

“We’re high enough up that I don’t think anyone is looking in,” Bull says. He continues unpacking the things he will need most. The clothes he doesn’t need he’ll store in Madame de Fer’s extra closet space.

He and M. Renard have both been studiously not mentioning the fact that not only was there only a single room left for them in the most socially appropriate yet anonymous hotel in Val Royeaux, but also inside that room is only a single bed. 

Bull sheepishly recalls an offhand comment to Sera about his ability to maintain cover even when sleeping in the same room as the target. Monsieur Renard is no target, but he is certain the limits of those alleged skills are about to be sorely tested. 

“It’s late,” says M. Renard. He’s long since hung up his only two suits-- one more nondescript than fashionable, the other a narrowly cut dark gray number with black velvet piping. It’s about as close to wearing a sign that says “arrest me, I’m a scoundrel” as a piece of clothing can get. Bull thinks it would set off his custom-made, soft-soled Hessian boots quite well, and the thought makes him reach to pour himself another cup of water. 

“Can I help you somehow?” M. Renard looks around at Bull’s suitcases. “Perhaps I’ll set up some pillows and a blanket on the couch?”

“Calling it a couch is like calling a phaeton a stagecoach.” Bull looks at the spindly little thing. It was very fashionable ten years ago, when all of Orlais descended briefly into a pastel blue art nouveau madness. “There’s no way you can sleep on that.”

“Please, I’ve slept on rafter beams,” M. Renard scoffs. “Besides, it’s not as if you can fit on it.” 

Bull takes a deep breath and centers himself. “I won’t allow you to be poorly rested for a job. We will both sleep in the bed tonight, and perhaps tomorrow we can find a more decorous solution.”


	15. In Which We Find Out A Truth

Dorian has been through worse. He’s slept on roofs and the occasional alleyway, even _under_ a bed in his early thieving days when he’d misjudged how long the homeowner would be gone. He’s gone plenty of nights without sleep as well. But truly, he thinks as he cautiously prepares for bed next to the Iron Bull, this is a new form of torture.

Despite the propriety of his daywear, it appears that the Bull has brought with him only a delicate lace-trimmed chemise for his periods of undress. It is cut to begin immodestly low and ends daringly high, and Dorian marvels at the expense of the garment, which he is certain is only for the Bull’s personal use. No character Dorian has seen Bull play would wear this, not even the gentleman thief he seems to default to still around the crew. He spies Cremisius’s tailor’s mark worked subtly into the ice blue lace around the left sleeve, the one that trails to cover the Bull’s two missing fingertips. Dorian finds himself disproportionately affected by the garment, by the Bull wearing it. He goes to pour himself another glass of water from the tap, having found his mouth suddenly quite dry. 

Bull eyes him with something akin to nervousness as Dorian turns away for the water glass, and it occurs to him that his hunch was correct--it is indeed the Iron Bull, wearing the Iron Bull’s clothes that is standing before him now, attempting to nonchalantly prepare for bed. That heady knowledge alone would be enough to make Dorian shiver, even without the effect the Bull’s bare knees is having. He takes his time pouring the water, taking a long sip with his back to Bull before turning back to his companion. “This is--” He gestures to the chemise, to Bull, to all of it. “--this is lovely.”

Bull’s gray skin does not show blushes easily, but Dorian has often been praised for his sharp eyes. “Krem made it. It was a uh, a gift.”

“Strange. I didn’t really get the impression your tailor liked me well enough to get me a gift.” Dorian replies, taking the risk of letting his eyes linger. 

He is rewarded with a grin, somewhere between sharp and shy. The moment teeters on a knife’s edge.

Outside the window, someone laughs loudly as they walk down the street. Dorian jumps at the noise. He very nearly vanishes himself, he is already so on edge.

“Care for a nightcap?” he asks. Their lodgings are not so austere as to have forgone a welcoming bottle of whiskey. He pours two glasses. If Bull does not want one, then Dorian will simply drink both.

Bull takes the offered glass from Dorian’s hand, and Dorian stares at his own drink instead of anywhere less wise. This is all quite unwise. The silk chemise is sky blue, the lace a shade or two darker, and if he looks too long Dorian is sure he will reach out and touch it.

For years now, he has made a living out of seeing things that he wants, and taking them. People, though-- especially people who know him-- are a much more dangerous game.

Bull sits on the side of the bed closest to the door, and puts his glass on the nightstand. Dorian mirrors his movements. The world outside of their little room seems so very far away. Everything has condensed to yellow candlelight on blue silk and gray skin.

The mattress dips under Bull’s weight, and much as he might wish not to, Dorian leans towards the center of the bed. He has never seen Bull’s back before. Why would he, when they are merely co-conspirators? It is broad, as he knew, and gray, as he had reason to suspect, but it is crossed with pale scars, some which travel onto his shoulders, and some further down.

Dorian stops himself before he touches Bull’s shoulder, but only just. Is it as soft as his hand, he wonders.

“You can ask, if you want to know,” says Bull. “I know it looks pretty rough.”

Dorian swallows. Some of the furrows run deep. “Do you want to tell me?”

“It’s a long story. A few long stories. Sometimes to get people to trust you, you have to share their pain. Sometimes, to get them to discount you, you have to let yourself seem entirely broken.” Bull turns to face him. “Sometimes, you get caught.”

Dorian places his whiskey glass on the nightstand. “For some reason, I thought you had never been caught. It couldn’t have been in Orlais?” 

“It was, actually, but it wasn’t the Orlesians.” Bull is looking somewhere past Dorian. “They should have brought me back to Par Vollen, really. If I’d gone through a full tribunal and not a field court martial, my punishment would have been much more permanent.”

“Was this not permanent enough?” 

Bull huffs out a laugh. “Apparently not. I got out again, didn’t I? I even still remembered my name.” 

Dorian shudders in sympathy, and Bull puts a hand on his arm, warm and close. “It’s in the past, Monsieur Renard. It’s not who I am anymore.”

A knot of shame burns in the back of Dorian's throat. He is not who he once was, either, but-- “Dorian,” he says. 

Bull’s fingers are still against his skin. “Pardon?”

“My name is Dorian.” He forces himself to look Bull in the eye. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to anyone, at least not until certain statutes of limitations have expired.”

“Of course,” Bull looks almost offended. “We were all something other than thieves once.”

“Not all of us were Pavuses.” He sees the connection click over in Bull’s eye. He must have heard the story from Cremisius. Or the papers. Or ten thousand other places. It was almost a relief, knowing that Bull knew.

“I was embedded in Tevinter for a while, you know.” Is all Bull says. “I met some folks in the Vyrantium council.” 

Dorian swallows.

“Can’t say I liked them,” Bull’s scarred shoulders tense reflexively, then relax. “Can’t say I was sorry to hear one of them was gone.” 

Dorian closes his eyes against the sting he feels there. He had anticipated a number of outcomes to this, but none of them had involved his actions being _understood_.

“Hey Dorian, do you want a hug?”

Dorian nods. It’s a relief, when he no longer has Bull’s sharp gaze on him, reading his every expression. The warmth of Bull’s arms around him is even better. One of his hands rests gently on the back of Dorian’s head, almost cradling it. It wouldn’t take much effort for him to tilt Dorian’s face up again, and kiss him. The effort it would take Dorian to do the same is insurmountable.

Bull releases him, eventually. “We should get some rest.”

Dorian does not trust himself to talk. He slides under the bedsheets, and weathers a new assault of intimacy as Bull joins him. He turns on his side, away from the temptation to cuddle up next to Bull like a lonely housepet.

“Good night, Dorian,” Bull says softly, clasping his arm with one hand.

There is no sleep to be had, lying this close to the Iron Bull, and after a couple hours listening to the Bull’s slow, even breathing, Dorian gives up trying. He carefully extricates himself from the duvet, tugs his breeches and boots on, and goes out the window. 

The Orlesian night markets are one of Dorian’s favorite parts of his visits to Val Royeaux. Far more colorful and less stuffy than the shops along the promenade, the riverside hosts a collection of artists and cooks, all crammed into tents competing for tourist money and elbow room. He had spent a great deal of time here when he had first left Tevinter, both as a performer and a pickpocket, and though he doubts any of the folk here would recognize him anymore, he still carries fond memories.

He purchases a dripping skewer of gulab jamun because it smells like home, and a brass ring adorned with a serpent from a junk dealer because it holds a tinge of magic the dealer is clearly unaware of. He finishes the skewer about two thirds through his circuit of the night market, and sighs as he realizes he needs to go back to the hotel, especially since he didn’t leave Bull a note.

It’s then that he spots the jeweler: a big Vashoth woman, her merchandise glittering in the torchlight, has set up a stall between a leatherworker and a dwarf selling popped corn. She smiles when Dorian stops, and he has banknotes out before he even thinks to haggle. 

The jewelry doesn’t fit with a single thing Bull owns, not his thief ensembles, not his various modest heirs or working class soldiers. It might go nicely though, Dorian thinks, with Bull’s pale blue chemise, were such jewelry necessary to sleep in. Perhaps with a nice riding skirt. He disposes of the paper wrap before he shimmies back up the hotel drainpipe, and secrets the item among Bull’s things.

The moonlight filters through the window, falling across the bed. Bull’s face looks softer than it does when he’s awake. He’s flat on his back, taking up the space Dorian left behind. It’s easy-- so easy-- to stand over him and just watch. Bull said he could spend a night in a room with a mark and not break cover, but Dorian thinks his targets were just not looking hard enough. This man could only be himself.

Carefully, Dorian pulls the sheets back and climbs in, moving as slowly as he ever had on a job. Bull does not stir. There is less space than before, and Dorian has no choice but to fit himself close against Bull’s side, his head pillowed on Bull’s upper arm.

In his sleep, Bull moves slightly as Dorian settles in. His hand finds its way to Dorian’s waist, and for a moment the brush of his fingers at the bottom of Dorian’s night shirt is like sodium in water. The weight is comforting, though, and slumber finds Dorian much sooner than he expects.


	16. In Which there is a Discussion Between Scientists

Bull’s suit is perfect. Or rather, its imperfections carry exactly the message he is trying to send. The shoulders hang a quarter-inch too long over his own, making him look more rounded, especially when he hunches over a bit. The light brown tweed is neither fashionable or very flattering.

What it is is comfortable and easy to move in. Bull hopes he won’t need to make any fast breaks, but it’s better to be prepared. He chooses a sturdy brass monocle with a false glass lens to complete his studious look.

Dorian, meanwhile, might have been unable to match his forged invitations to the real guest list, but he could fabricate letters of introduction for a couple of waitstaff in his sleep. He and Sera would enter as servants and then switch to their finery in the lavatory to provide Bull and Dagna with backup and plausible deniability. 

Vivienne, accompanying Bastien, needs no introduction. Her use of her real name (and more importantly, Bastien’s real name), however, did mean she could only be involved in a somewhat limited capacity. 

But, all things being equal, this part of the job is pretty cut and dry. Chat up a bored officer, drink some expensive champagne, sit next to Dagna during the speeches. What could go wrong?

The carriage Daga hires to bring them to the party is nice. They do have to talk Sera out of acting as driver-- she has enough of her own work to do-- but the ride is pleasant. He’s impressed by Dagna’s lack of nerves.

“One more time,” he coaxes, as their coach slows to a halt. They likely won’t actually alight in front of the venue for another ten or fifteen minutes. There are enough people invited to this party that it will take hours for everyone to arrive.

“My most esteemed colleague is an assistant lecturer of draconology in one of the little Ostagar colleges, we met at a talk I gave a few years ago and struck up a correspondence,” she replies promptly, grinning and playing with the seed pearls embroidered on the sleeve of her gown. “You’re ever so shy, it’s taken me ages to talk you into accompanying me to a party. We’re not engaged, but we might be soon.”

“If people ask for details, keep it simple, and turn the question back to them, if you can,” Bull advises. “Really, the less you talk about me, the better. I’ll bring you a drink or snack and check in at least once every half hour or so. The others will be close by as well.”

She leans across the carriage and pats his knee. “I know you will. For a bunch of thieves, you’re all quite caring. Or, we all are, I suppose.” She giggles.

Bull smiles back, bringing the right feelings to the surface. She’s sweet, and smart as a tack. He thinks about how quickly she saw through them, and how happy she makes Sera. He thinks about Dagna in the lab at the chateau with Dorian-- Monsieur Renard, then-- arguing cheerfully about the proper ratio of cream to coffee in their cups and lyrium to nitrate in the disappearing jewel. He thinks about Dorian laughing as he sits on a bannister like it’s a throne, about Dorian’s eyes bright and wide in the darkness of their shared room the night before, about waking up with Dorian pressed against him as if he had always belonged there.

“What will you do if you recognize someone?” Dagna asks.

“Move quickly to a different room,” Bull says. “There’s more vashoth in Orlais than there are in say, Minrathous, and it’s going to be _very_ crowded.”

She grins mischievously. “Will we dance?”

“I wouldn’t discount the possibility.” He’s used a dance to do everything from slipping messages or incriminating evidence into people’s pockets, to maneuvering quickly across a room, to just escaping a boring conversation. “But you needn’t sit around waiting for me. Dance, mingle, eat. Your job is to look as normal and innocent as possible.”

“That’s actually the least helpful thing you’ve said.”

“Sorry, Mein Drachen,” he says, pulling his accent into place, along with a nervous but hopeful expression. “Think of it this way: you’re a famous inventor, people will be very happy to know you’re eccentric, as long as you’re also pleasant, and I know you can charm the breeches off of the coarsest scoundrel in your sleep.”

\---

Dorian always gets a little thrill out of slipping into a closet as one person and stepping back out of it another. He’s not as expert as Bull, but he can certainly pull off the switch from waitstaff to anonymous gentleman who must be a friend of a friend. It was both a comfort and a blow to his ego when he learned just how forgettable the average person finds any other average person, even an average person with a fantastic mustache. Still, the switch will go better if he takes an extra moment to add a touch of makeup, a bit of a hairstyle. The last thing he wants is to happen upon someone observant.

Even the waiter who offers him a glass of champagne doesn’t recognize the man who followed him out of the kitchen ten minutes ago. Dorian accepts graciously, and strolls up the stairs to the mezzanine, where he can see most of the dancing, and most importantly, the corner where Brigadier-General Cassandra Pentaghast has installed herself. She looks quite dashing in her navy blue jacket, and the cut of her cream colored uniform trousers is flattering, but Dorian has seen few women look so ferociously displeased to be talking with a celebrity on par with Varric Tethras, erstwhile Viscount of Kirkwall.

Varric, for his part, seems to be taking General Pentaghast’s highly focused disinterest in stride. Then again, in Dorian’s experience, Varric takes most things in stride. It creates the perfect opening however, for Bull and Dagna to swoop in and rescue the General.

Dorian takes a sip of his champagne as he leans on the railing. He respects Cremisius’s work, truly he does. He did an excellent job of making Bull look like the most boring academic in Thedas, and Bull accessorized perfectly with an air of overanxious excitement, but unfortunately-- unfortunately, Dorian still finds him fascinating.

“What a pair of suckers we are,” Sera says, materializing at Dorian’s elbow. She could not be talked into a gown for love nor money, but the daringly cut yellow-check suitcoat Krem made has distinguished her plenty from the waitstaff. She sighs as she stares down at Dagna.

Dorian considers lying, but he does still have a slight upper hand regardless. “At least I didn’t fall for a civilian.”

“At least I’ve made progress,” Sera snipes back. They down their champagne flutes as one. 

Below them, Vivienne and Bastien spin around the dancefloor like a vision from a storybook. Her sky blue skirt swirls around her like flower petals, and from his vantage point Dorian can see her smile up at Bastien, as unguarded as she’s ever been. He leans sadly against Sera rather than respond. 

“‘S not sodding fair,” Sera follows his gaze. 

“They’ve worked hard for their happiness,” Dorian says loyally. “It didn’t fall into their laps.”

“I’ve worked bleeding hard too,” Sera argues, “and I still can’t go to a party as-- as-- with--” Sera looks alarmingly close to tears. She kicks the baluster hard enough to scuff both her boot and the paint. 

Dorian sighs. “I know.” Bull directs an adoring gaze at Dagna as they talk, placing his hand on her arm. Dorian and Sera wince. 

“I know it’s for the job,” Sera sobers slightly, “It’s just...it’s just hard is all. Having to be watching like this.”

Dorian agrees.


	17. In Which A Plan Comes Together

They’ve narrowed it down to two possible routes. The Heart of the Dales will either be transported the long way around via the canals, or along an almost-main thoroughfare, in a disguised vehicle.

The night of, Sera and her Jennies stake out one route, and Bull, Dorian, and Vivienne the other. It’s a tense evening.

Dorian is crouched on a rooftop a dozen feet above him, and Vivienne is just around a corner across the street. Vivienne has traded in her heels for boots and her gown for a bulky men’s overcoat, and when she huddles down against the corner of a building she looks like any other overgrown urchin taking a nap between begging alms from the richer tourists.

Bull himself has opted for the tried and true “drunk in an alleyway” bit, leaning listlessly on the windowsill of a dark storefront.

It’s not long after dark that he hears Dorian’s signal-- three pebbles dropping to the ground beside him, and he flashes a quick handsign to Vivienne. They are minutes away.

When the first guard rounds the corner, Bull allows himself to be roused and sent on his way, moving down the alley with only a token sleepy complaint. The man is businesslike and careful. He waits for a moment after Bull turns onto the far street before he makes his way back to his charge.

Bull keeps pace with the covered carriage, moving parallel along the street one block over. He imagines, though he’s fairly certain he’s wrong, that he can see Dorian from time to time as well, just an impression of a dark shape sliding across the rooftop.

The carriage is pulled by two sturdy horses, and looks from the outside like it might belong to a moderately well-off merchant. It’s designed for people, not cargo, but it’s riding strangely. It doesn’t have quite as much spring as Bull expects, and the curtains over the windows are so still they might be nailed shut.

It moves slowly and quietly, another inconsistency with the passengers it wants to pretend it carries. They’re not in the seediest part of town, but surely any person with a coach like this would like to be on their way home at this hour.

Bull clocks seven guards. One in front, two behind, and two on either side. Four are mounted. If they’re smart, there’s at least one person inside the carriage. Bull can see swords hanging from the hip of each guard he can catch a glimpse of, and it’s a safe bet that there’s at least one person in the group who can do magic.

This is not the sort of thing Bull likes to do unless there is any other choice. With one-on-one, face-to-face work, at least he’s usually confident that he has the upper hand in a physical fight. This guard detail is focused and dangerous.

And anyways, as much as his instinct is to try to control the situation, he’s not running point. He watches for Vivienne and Dorian-- who, for all he knows, have done this type of job together a hundred times-- and keeps his brass knuckles handy.

The guard means they can keep pace through the city and wait for an advantageous position--it wouldn’t do for their sloppiness to leave an opening for the regular Orlesian Guard a chance to help out. 

The streets are not quite deserted, but most people pass by with barely a look at the carriage. The clouds that hung overhead all day release a dull drizzle, which does little more than dampen the cobblestones and make Bull’s bad knee ache.

Bull isn’t in charge, but that doesn’t stop him from seeing the obvious opportunity when the carriage cuts through a blind alley to avoid being stalled by the crowd near the public hall on Rue de Chantre. It seems some magnanimous soul (Vivienne) has rented out several food carts to hand out free skewers and sweets to any urchin who stops by just outside, and it creates quite a tangle. 

He doesn’t see that Dorian has made it ahead of both him and the carriage until Dorian throws the trap, a dark metal disc Dorian explained the inner workings of in his workshop the week before. The carriage runs over it seconds after it makes the turn, and the evening here is so quiet that Bull hears the internal canister crunch. It’s time, then.

The trap lets out a swift gout of purple flame that quickly licks up the wooden wheels of the carriage and disintegrates all but one. The guard at the front tries to draw his sword, but Dorian falls on him from above, his knee cracking into the back of the man’s neck as he bears him fully to the ground.

Bull springs forward, grabbing the closest guard by his shiny leather belt and dragging him into the alley. A swift strike to his solar plexus crumples him. He moves quickly but cautiously around the corner to deal with the others at the carriage so that Dorian can address the jewel itself.

He finds only two still standing, and one of those collapses nearly into Bull’s arms as Dorian, hands wreathed in black and purple glyphs that seem to burn themselves into the back of Bull’s eye, releases his throat.

The horses of the two rear guards scream and buck their riders, a pale mist around their eyes. Bull is unsure if it is Dorian or Vivenne who cast the spell, but it is certainly Vivenne who swiftly electrocutes the guards before they can get up from the ground. It is hard to be sure in the dark, but Bull thinks she spares him a wink as the last few sparks fade from her hands. 

Bull’s distraction very nearly creates an opportunity, but he hears the last guard’s boot crunch in the gravel in time to block her swing. He mentally thanks Krem for the subtle but metal-plated gauntlets he got for wintersend last year as the shortsword smacks his forearm with a muffled clank. Bull readjusts his grip on his brass knuckles and prepares to explain her error in judgement. 

He is just about finished up when he hears Dorian scream.


	18. In Which A Plan Falls Apart

Dorian at least had the presence of mind to shout “Madame” rather than Vivienne’s real name, but that’s all he can really congratulate himself on at the moment. Time turns to syrup around him and he dashes forward even as he knows he will still be too far away to help. 

They had forgotten about the Nevarrans. Or, more accurately, Dorian had been too much of a damned fool to ask himself why the plentiful (and despite his protestations occasionally competent) Orlesian guard would hire out a foreign company to protect the Heart. 

Unfortunately, he knew why now. The smite, a skill so rare in the post-Circle world Dorian had only seen it used once in a Tevinter prison, ripped through Vivienne’s defenses as she stumbled backwards from the carriage door. Feeling his own magical aura ripple in sympathy, Dorian was briefly astonished she was still conscious. 

Vivienne can do little more than crawl away, curled tight around herself as if she had experienced a physical blow. The Nevarran stepped out of the carriage--and if he was leaving it, there was almost certainly a second Nevarran inside. His drawn sword gleams silver in the moonlight. 

Dorian is a big believer in the idea that one’s life spins on a precariously constructed axis of split-second decisions. This one, for example, would certainly take his own life in a somewhat more truncated direction. 

“Hey!” He shouts, and wings a dagger at the Nevarran. The Nevarran guard is more heavily armored than a storybook knight, so the dagger does little more than clank loudly against the solid metal chestplate, but it gives Vivienne the time she needs to roll out of melee range. 

\---

Bull chokes back a shout as the Nevarran guard charges Dorian. Shouting isn’t his job right now. He’s seen enough desperate sacrifice plays in his life to know what Dorian wants him to do, however much it kills him, is to get ma’am out. 

It doesn’t mean it’s not killing him. 

Bull hauls Vivienne to her feet, hears her hoarse, broken whisper of “Dorian,” but Bull is a professional; he knows better than to look back. 

He looks back. Dorian, ashen as a ghost already, meets his eyes as the Nevarran pulls their blade from his gut, snaps blood-stained fingers, and disappears into thin air. 

The Nevarran shouts in surprise and swings his sword wildly at the place Dorian had just been. He hits nothing but air, but a tight knot of fear burns in Bull’s gut.

“Run.” Vivienne at least has regained her wits. She gives Bull’s horn a vicious yank to get him moving. “Run, Bull. Now.” 

Vivienne lays down a pitiful spray of fire to cover their retreat. Bull can see the flames gutter and die in her hands as she burns through whatever small quantity of magic she had recovered. He shakes himself out of his stupor long enough to smash the half full bottle of whiskey he brought as a prop into the fire and bolt after her. 

Dorian’s distraction worked, but that’s a cold comfort. Bull and Vivienne duck into an alley, then hop across a small canal, then slip over a fence into a garden. Bull steadies Madame Vivienne as she staggers. 

“I don’t think they saw you,” she says when they catch their breath. “You have to go back and get--”

“We have to get you somewhere safe,” Bull insists. He feels like he might be sick. “Forget-- forget the jewel, we’ll try again.”

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “I will draw them away. You _must_ go back, darling. Someone must collect Dorian when he comes out of his spell.”

Bull’s heart races off a cliff. “You mean--” 

Vivienne lays a firm hand on his arm. He can feel the effort she puts into stopping its shaking. Bull doesn’t even know what the Nevarran did to her. “Alive or dead, we leave no one behind for the Orlesians.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He squares his shoulders. 

“I will lead these Orlesians on a merry chase, and meet you at the room you’ve been staying in. Dorian will need healing.” She accepts his hand to step over the garden wall and onto a rooftop. “If you can’t make it there, find a Jenny, and I’ll find you.”

She leans down to kiss Bull’s cheek. He nods, not trusting himself to talk.

“He’s strong, darling. Get him back to me, and all will be well.” She vanishes into the night.

\---

Dorian is in something of a bad way. He can feel it--or rather he can’t feel it in his gut, which has gone mercifully numb. He’s heard that that’s a bad sign, but he’s heard lots of things are bad signs before, and ignored those, too. For now, the best he can do is press his hand to the wound and try not to be too disgusted by the blood that drips out in time with his pulse. 

His vision, already blurred and dreamlike in his unspace, has gone dark around the edges. Even with the livid reminder of his pulse in his hands, Dorian can’t keep count. He sways a bit on the spot, and rights himself before he moves too far out of his small glyph, wishing for the umpteenth time that he could figure out how to put air in this place. If he passes out, he will drop the spell for certain. If he stays too long, well-- there’s certainly not enough air to stay too long.

The second Nevarran emerges from the carriage, a heavy black leather case under one arm. They shout at each other, and the one who stabbed him rallies the remaining Orlesian guards. He sends them down the alley after the last glimmer of Vivienne’s fire, swords drawn.

The one with the case surveys the ruined carriage with displeasure, and the guards Dorian took out with undisguised contempt. She does not move to help them. With her free hand, she pulls out a pocket watch and curses at the time lost. 

Dorian watches, hazily, as the Nevarrans turn away and start down the alley, and then Dorian is gone. His only thought is to hope he doesn’t make too much noise when his body hits the cobblestones.


	19. In Which They Stop Running

Bull does his best to seem casual. Every roll of a carriage-wheel a street over, or a dog barking from a yard, has him reaching for the knife he keeps tucked in his boot.

He skirts the Orlesian Guard, thundering after Vivienne like a pack of dogs on the hunt and baying just as loudly. He believes they will not catch her, even in her current state. He has to believe it.

He can’t climb over rooftops as easily as Vivienne and Dorian, and the rain is still falling, so he sticks to the ground. He approaches the alleyway with painful caution.

At the far end, he sees the glimmer of Nevarran steel as two figures turn sharply onto the street. The narrow space is still and silent as Bull inches forward, ready for anything to come from above or behind him, or back around the corner with a dozen armed guards.

He is not ready for Dorian to slide back into existence like a page being turned. His face is ashen and his hands are pressed weakly against his stomach. His eyes are closed.

Bull doesn’t make it to him before he hits the ground, but he’s there a moment later.

He’s not unfamiliar with death. He’s not unfamiliar with the light-headed panic of losing a friend, nor with the way a person’s skin goes cold and waxy when they lose too much blood. Koslun’s balls, he’s not even unfamiliar with gut wounds.

“Hey, big guy,” he murmurs as he gently lifts Dorian’s head from the ground, careful not to jostle his neck in case anything was damaged on the way down. Only decades of training and self control keep the waver from his voice. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Dorian’s eyes flutter open for just a moment. “Bull--”

“Don’t worry, the coast is clear for the moment. I’m going to get you and the decoy back to Madame, and we’ll deal with the rest later.” He takes off his coat and wraps Dorian up in it, to hide the blood from anyone they’ll pass, and from himself.

Carefully, carefully, he gathers Dorian’s limp body to his chest and stands. He starts walking away from the canal on instinct, away from the Orlesian Guards, and turns the opposite direction from where the Nevarrans went. 

The first thing he does is put distance between himself and the carriage. The hour is late enough and Bull is big enough that no one tries to bother him.

Dorian lies still, breathing shallowly. He feels too small and fragile, and Bull focuses on finding the emptiest streets, rather than the tackiness of the blood coating his hands.

It seems like Ages later and no time at all before he’s bluffing his way past the concierge and laying Dorian down on the bed they’d slept in the night before. Bull shakily pours himself a bit of the whiskey just to have something to do, but he winds up pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed, waiting for Vivienne to appear.

After five minutes, or an hour, he sits gingerly down on the bed next to Dorian. He knows field medicine. He’s seen wounds. There’s no way a clean stab looks worse than shrapnel wounds or the desolation left behind by a dreadnought assault.

Bull peels his coat away. The blood is drying, leaving the wool stiff and tacky. Is there too much? Humans are so much smaller than him. Rather than move Dorian around getting his undershirt off, Bull slices the front and opens it that way.

The wound is not the worst he’s seen, but it is absolutely not good. He murmurs nonsense words to Dorian, telling him to keep pressure on the wound while he looks for something to dress it with until Madame gets there. Dorian doesn’t open his eyes, but his hand stays on his stomach, pressing-- but not as firmly as he had been.

Bull sets the decoy jewel on the dresser and goes to the window and looks around for any sign of Vivienne, but the rain is coming down harder and he can barely see to the end of the sloped roof opposite. There’s nothing to tell him if she is or is not coming soon. He turns to his luggage. He always keeps a bottle of antiseptic and some clean gauze close to hand, and if worse comes to worst, he does have his sewing kit.

The scarf he pulls out he chooses for a makeshift bandage not for any particular virtues it has, but because he wears it when playing a particularly clean sort of dandy, and it is therefore the closest thing to sterile he has. He pulls out the neatly folded package of white silk and is startled when something inside it hits the ground with a soft thump. 

The necklace, and its matching horn bangles, are delicate things. A spiderweb of ice-pale sapphires and silver chain. Bull knows instantly that he didn’t buy them. He would never have spent money on these. He would never have forgotten them if he had. They’re not necessary to what he does, far too feminine for any of the characters he usually plays. This sort of jewelry isn’t practical, just a beautiful indulgence. It’s the sort of thing men buy their lovers--the sort of thing Bull would have wanted only for himself. 

The sapphires rattle against one another in his shaking hands. They’re his favorite color, though he can’t figure out how Dorian knew. He takes a deep breath and puts the necklace and bangles aside for now. He can deal with those thoughts later, provided Dorian lives long enough to discuss them. 

For now, he unfurls the clean silk scarf and kneels down at Dorian’s side to press the fabric into the wound. Dorian gives a grunt of pain, but does nothing else except to place his red-stained hands over Bull’s own. Bull bows his head and steadies his breathing, using Dorian’s thready heartbeat to keep time. 

Vivienne taps politely on the windowpane before jimmying the lock open. She and Sera enter with a gust of wind and rain. Sera closes it behind them as Vivienne hurries to the bed, stripping off her soaked coat and rubbing her hands to warm them.

“Look at me, please,” she says with all the bedside gentleness of an exasperated Tamassran. Dorian opens one eye reproachfully. 

She nods sharply. “You’re alive. Excellent. Bull, darling, please hold his hands down, away from where I will be working. Sera, if you could get his feet. I know, I know, dear,” she tells Dorian, “but you did kick me in the face last time we did this, and I do not want a repeat. Now, you will feel a slight pinch, and if we’re all lucky, that will be all.”

She claps her hands together, and green light pools between her palms, brighter and brighter until it seems to shine out the other sides of her hands, making her skin glow from the inside out. She looks once to Sera, and then to Bull, and places her hands firmly over the gash in Dorian’s abdomen.

The light floods downward into the wound, and Dorian stiffens and thrashes weakly. Bull can see the magic spread through Dorian’s veins and skin, lighting him up from within. Dorian pulls hard against him, but Bull bears down on his wrists, holding him still. Sera has more trouble, and Dorian does nearly knee her in the eye, but as the last of the light drains out of Vivienne’s hands, he shudders and goes still.

It’s less like the injured muscles knitting together and more like a mason filling a crack in a wall with caulk. The green glow fades little by little, until there is no mark left where the wound had been.

Dorian takes a deep, shuddering breath, and gingerly touches his stomach. The only difference Bull can see is that the new skin is a little paler than the rest, a bare patch where the rest of his stomach has a soft trail of hair.

Belatedly, Bull releases Dorian’s wrists. He tries to sit up, but settles for pulling the halves of his torn shirt together across his bare chest.“Thank you, Madame, that was quite bracing.”

“I _hate_ this magic shite,” Sera says, shaking her hands out as if she can shake the magic off like water. Bull understands the impulse.

“I’m rather grateful for it at the moment, thanks.” As nonchalant as Dorian tries to sound, Bull can see him cover a grimace as he slowly drags himself upright. 

“It will take a few more sessions to get all the internals working properly,” Vivienne is nearly as ashen as Dorian was. “I’m afraid all I have power for at the moment is keeping you from the brink.” 

Dorian nods, waves a hand airily. “I shall have to live with the inconvenience.” 

“Yeah you will,” Sera punches him in the arm, her grin a little manic, and Dorian winces, apparently still tender. “Too soon?” 

Bull picks himself up and dusts himself off. Vivienne looks near to collapse herself, so someone needs to take charge. “Sera, can you escort Madame back to her room? I’ll get-- I’ll get Monsieur Renard cleaned up. We can rendezvous and discuss our next step in the morning.”

He opens the door for the ladies and bids them goodnight, then turns back to face Dorian.

The damned fool has made it to his feet, and is holding himself up only with the help of a bedpost. “Back down,” Bull says, resisting the urge to manhandle Dorian into obeying. That wouldn’t help anything.

“I can clean myself up. You needn’t worry over me,” Dorian tries.

“Yeah, that ship pretty much sailed when a Nevarran guy disemboweled you, big guy.” 

“It was only a little stab,” Dorian was bordering on whining. “I was still thoroughly embowled, Bull. I don’t want you to go to any more trouble than you already have.” 

“Too fucking bad,” Bull says. “If you want to do something, take off that shirt and sit on that chair. I’m going to get some water ready.”

“What, are you going to sponge me off tenderly like a Tethras heroine?” Dorian scoffs.

“The more you talk, the less tender it’ll be,” Bull threatens, but his heart’s not in it. “Just sit down and let me check you over. For my peace of mind, if nothing else.”

Dorian sits, and stays sat until Bull returns from the sink with a washbasin and pile of clean rags. “I really have done this before,” he says softly. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t wish to.”

Bull wets one rag kneels down to run it over Dorian’s stomach. It comes away redder the second time. “And if I wish?”

Dorian’s breathing stills under Bull’s hand before it picks back up, deliberately steady. Bull doesn’t stop the rag’s efficient motion. “Well,” he replies slowly, “I suppose I’m hardly in a position to stop you.”

Bull looks up at him. “Tell me to stop and I will.”

Dorian touches Bull’s face, rubbing his thumb gently between his brows. “So serious. No, go ahead. Do your worst.”

“My worst is pretty intense. You sure you’re up for it?” Even as he says it Bull finds himself already leaning into Dorian’s steady hand.

Dorian gives Bull a smile as the blood comes away. “You know, I rather think I am.”


	20. In Which There Are Advances In The Field

Dagna’s townhouse in Val Royeaux (Dorian is informed she has several residences throughout Ferelden and Orlais but she “doesn’t really keep track of that stuff”) is not opulent, but it is spacious, which in the city is opulence in itself, and bursting at the seams with fascinating magical touches and lab equipment that isn’t even on the market yet. As much as Dorian wishes to dissect them and have Dagna explain every facet of her home system, however, the most important feature of the townhouse for their current purposes is its privacy. 

Everyone is politely not blaming each other for the debacle, but Dorian thinks that Sera is the only one who considers herself entirely guiltless. Bull and Vivienne are both mothering Dorian in their own ways-- Bull with a ready teapot and a constant quiet, supportive presence, and Madame with brisk instructions on the care of his newly healed wound and also, to everyone’s surprise, a steady stream of perfectly heated teacups.

Dorian himself has decided to manage the shame he feels fucking up such a simple smash and grab by systematically identifying and eliminating all possible future mistakes.

Bull hovers nearby as Dorian checks over his decoy for the third time today. He seems to think that his protectiveness over Dorian-- Bull has even started entering rooms first, even in Dagna’s townhouse, and subtly checking them over-- is less concerning than Dorian’s own coping techniques. For his part, Dorian actually enjoys being fussed over, though he will likely tire of it in a day or so. Although, the foot rubs? Not so soon.

“Has it changed?” Bull asks mildly as Dorian holds the jewel up and examines its facets with a magnifying glass.

Dorian doesn’t answer.

“You know, if you put this much attention to the exercises Madame suggested you do, maybe you would have been able to touch your toes without moaning about it this morning.”

Dorian snaps the magnifying glass shut and turns to face Bull. “How many times in one’s life is one actually required to bend down and touch one’s toes? It’s a myth perpetuated by calisthenics instructors so they can take more hard earned cash from the inflexible.”

“Oh, so you haven’t been wearing your boots since your injury because they’ve fallen out of style in the past two days?” 

Dorian bites his lip. “You spend an awful lot of time thinking about my boots,” he deflects. 

“I spend a lot of time thinking about you in them.” Bull steps forward, into Dorian’s space, though Dorian notices he makes sure to give the replica a careful berth. Dorian’s pulse quickens at his impropriety. 

Bull is very close now, so close Dorian has to tilt his head up to continue speaking with him. Dorian takes a steadying breath and presses himself against Bull, feeling Bull back into the lab bench to compensate for their abrupt closeness. Bull isn’t wearing a full suitcoat today, is nearly as dressed down as Dorian is. The silver buttons of his waistcoat press against the thin fabric of Dorian’s shirt. “Yet you seem to spend very little time doing anything about those thoughts.”

Bull’s hands come up and land on Dorian’s shoulders. Up close, he is not only very tall but very broad. Dorian’s can feel the pressure of Bull’s palms spread across his back, smoothing out his rumpled shirt.

“We’ve been working.” Bull is staring at Dorian’s mouth. “I was trying to make a professional impression on the famous Black Fox.” He swallows hard and reaches up to loosen his cravat.

“Well, since the professional part of our acquaintance might be at an end, I think we both deserve a bit of a consolation prize.” Dorian puts his own hand over Bull’s, unties the cravat for him. 

Bull’s lips part has he takes a shallow breath. Dorian can see his pulse thundering in his neck. He casts the cravat onto the lab bench without bothering to look away from the matter at hand.

“I would very much like to kiss you,” Dorian tells him, since apparently someone needs to say it out loud. “And although I have been thoroughly impressed, seeing the man with no face work up close, I would like to kiss _you_ Bull.”

He slides his hand around the back of Bull’s neck and stands up on his toes, leaning entirely on Bull in order to stay upright. He tilts his face up and looks directly into Bull’s eye.

Bull’s fingers clench in Dorian’s shirt. He leans forward for a moment, then back, closing his eye. “Are you sure you want--” 

Dorian gives a little tug at Bull’s neck. “Now, if you please.”

And Bull does. He pulls Dorian up against him, pressing their bodies together from chest to belly to thigh. The Iron Bull kisses him without reservation or restraint, pinning them together in a desperate smear of mouths until he is forced to come away for air. 

Bull leans his forehead against Dorian’s and smiles, eye still closed. “I’ve wanted to do that since I met you, Dorian.” Dorian moves one hand down Bull’s chest, out of pure scientific curiosity. He is intrigued to discover that Bull has followed one of the few Fereldan fashions worth exporting, and his starched shirts cover up a pair of fascinating little rings on his chest. 

Bull kisses him again, breath coming faster as Dorian gives one an experimental tug through the fine cotton lawn. Dorian is overcome with an urge to catalogue each of Bull’s reactions, to see him in his most natural state.

“Perhaps we should take this back to the room at the hotel?” Dorian suggests.

Bull leans down and presses his lips back to Dorian’s. The look in his eye is heady and entirely without artifice. “Ask me again when you can touch your toes,” he answers, smirking. 

“How’s the replica?” Dagna’s voice sends them jumping apart like startled rabbits. 

“It’s fine,” Dorian manages. He tugs at his shirt futility, and she gives him a sunny and all too knowing smile. “The lattice is holding. We have probably two more days before it sublimates, not that it matters now.” 

“Whaddya mean it doesn’t matter?” Sera is, as she always is these days, close on Dagna’s heels. 

Bull looks at Sera incredulously. “The Heart isn’t in transit anymore. It’s guarded twenty-four hours a day in a vault the Ben-Hassrath called ‘overkill’ and it will remain there until it’s put in a sealed display that will be guarded by the same Nevarrans that kicked our asses the first time, not to mention the thousands of people that have come to see it. There’s no way to make that switch. Not even for us.” 

“Which vault?” Dagna asks.

“ _The_ vault.” She’s new to the life, Dorian doesn’t blame her for not knowing. “The Emissary 1300, version twelve. The manual locks are a maze of false tumblers and spun glass relockers too delicate for drilling, not that it would matter because the door is dragonbone-reinforced silverite and it doesn’t even open on hinges, it has a magical trigger that melts it away. Rumor has it if an unauthorized person somehow does crack it and reaches past the door while it’s open, it reforms and slices their hands right off.”

“It does not slice hands off!” Dagna says. “That was an unfortunate accident when I was testing the failsafes, and I was wearing gloves, so everything is fine.”

“Wait,” says Bull, “ _You_ built the mother of all safes?” 

“Well it’s technically the mother of all vaults,” Dagna says. “Safes are installed in a room, and can be ripped out of a wall or something. A vault is a room itself. But yes!” She crosses the lab cheerfully, rummaging through her frostbox to produce a pitcher of switchel and two glasses for herself and Sera.

“Could you open it?” Dorian asks her urgently. “If we got you to the vault, could you get into it?”

Dagna grimaces. “I mean, in theory. Definitely not alone. But with a couple extra pairs of hands to sacrifice to the vault...” 

“I’ll get some off the sodding Nevarrans,” Sera offers a bit too seriously. “Least they could do for us after the last cock-up.”

Dagna giggles. “No, I’m kidding about the sacrifice part. But I really would need a couple extra people to crack it. It’s not like I built in a bunch of vulnerabilities on purpose, you know. It’s the best vault on the market. I did my best to make it uncrackable.” 

“Next time,” Bull says, “maybe your second best would be good enough.”

“Just think,” Sera is grinning as she takes a gulp of her switchel. “We’re gonna be the first ones to crack the Emissary. Shite, even if we weren’t stealing the Heart of the Dales we’d still be famous.” 

“We are cracking it by cheating,” Dorian points out mildly.

“Tomato, potato,” Sera says. “Now Widdle, let’s talk about tools.”


	21. In Which There Is A Beautiful View Of The Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone :)

For the first time since he was very thoroughly stabbed in a dark alleyway, Dorian is feeling optimistic about their odds. Something about nearly dying has made him feel a little bit invincible. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the way Bull is looking at him.

Dorian’s not sure which one of them he’s been teasing, taking the long, slow way back to the hotel after supper at Dagna’s townhouse. They walk hand in hand, like young lovers without a care in the world. Of course, Dorian does have a care or two, not least of which is that since he bled so very much over one of his two pairs of trousers, Sera has lent him a pair of hers. They are tight, and garishly green, and Dorian would very much like to remove them.

So as sweet as it is to walk along the canal with Bull, Dorian moves with purpose.

There’s a moment, when the door closes behind them, that Bull looks at the bed, and although Sera assured them it was some of her friends who cleaned up-- well, everything-- Dorian worries that perhaps this room has been soured for Bull. For his own part, Dorian remembers practically nothing before Vivienne’s magic had grabbed his heart and forced it to keep beating.

But then Bull kisses him again, and Dorian sets those worries aside.

He grabs at Bull’s lapels, pulls him closer, sinking into the feeling of being held. Bull bends down to meet him, cradling Dorian’s face in his hands. 

“Why’d you give me that necklace?” He asks, breath hot on Dorian’s cheek, working his way down the side of Dorian's throat with lips and tongue. 

“I thought you’d like it,” Is all Dorian can manage between breathless gasps as Bull yanks his cravat aside, begins the process of leaving a calling card on his collarbone. “I thought it would look pretty.”

“Pretty,” Bull repeats, drawing back for air. He doesn’t look upset, but he does seem slightly confounded by the simplicity of Dorian’s answer. 

“Pretty,” Dorian almost croons. He has known men--even men of his own predilections--who would come to blows over less than the word, but Bull has never once struck him as that sort of man. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

Bull’s breath comes heavier, his eye dark and hooded. He steps backward, his knees catching and sitting him down hard on the bed. Dorian has known Bull long enough now to know the position is no accident.

Dorian obliges the unspoken request, steps into Bulls space and looms over him. He tilts Bull’s chin up to meet his eyes and feels the pulse thundering beneath his fingers. 

Bull looks up at him, patient and waiting. Dorian brushes his thumb across Bull’s lower lip, pressing just a little to watch how it changes. When he lifts his finger, blood rushes back to the spot, and Dorian wonders if Bull’s skin is not so thick as it looks. He leans down to look Bull in the eye. “You want this.” It’s not a question, not really, but he has to be sure.

“Yes,” Bull says, completely honest. He takes Dorian’s thumb into his mouth, lets Dorian hold him in place.

“You want to be pretty, and sweet, and good for me.”

Bull nods, eye sliding shut. “For you, Dorian,” he agrees.

The power of this is overwhelming, but Dorian got into this line of work because he has always found it dull to resist temptation. Dorian kisses Bull gently on his forehead and rises to his feet. “All right,” he says, more to himself than to Bull. To Bull, he says, “would you be so kind as to unfasten my shirt?”

Piece by piece, Bull undresses him. Dorian is helpful, turning when required, holding still when Bull wants to take his time on a cuff or a button. Bull is enamored of his hands, Dorian sees, and takes special care of the place where Dorian is no longer wounded. When shirt and waistcoat and the rest are all removed, he presses his lips softly against that spot just above Dorian’s left hip.

“Now you,” Dorian says. “You needn’t wear a costume here anymore.” 

Bull closes his eye and shudders under his hand. Dorian allows this, just as he allows Bull to stand and remove his clothes himself despite his fingers aching with the desire to touch them.  
Bull’s trousers are military style, and fasten with fifteen silver buttons. Dorian’s mouth is dry just considering the thought. 

Bull breaks their strange spell for a moment, hanging his jacket and trousers carefully in the armoire, and folding his shirt and underthings with precise, practiced movements. Dorian watches with interest, as Bull does this entirely unclothed, and the sight is as fascinating as it is novel, considering how carefully buttoned up he has always been before. 

Dorian watches as Bull walks back across the room to him. Their eyes meet for a significant moment, and Dorian is nodding yes to something, though he doesn’t know what. Bull drops to his good knee, tucking the bad one in behind it, and tugs at the lacings of Dorian’s borrowed breeches. 

Dorian doesn’t trust himself to say much more than the whispered “good,” he manages as he places a hand at the base of Bull’s horn, holding tight.

A hurried back-alley assignation is nothing like this. A night of pleasure bought with stolen gems is nothing like this. Dorian has kissed men in operahouses, made them scream his name in public baths. He’s certainly been fucked in a hotel before, but he’s never once had anything like this. 

Bull presses his nose to the crease of Dorian's hip and breathes deep, his hands fumbling blindly through the last of the lacings. Bull is trembling a bit, Dorian thinks, but it’s hard to be certain with how much he is shaking himself. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Dorian whispers, his voice unsteady to his own ear. “So good to me.”

Bull lays kisses across the newly exposed skin, his fingers tracing along Dorian's thigh until they get to the cuffs of the bright green breeches. He makes quick work of the brass buttons holding the cuffs tight, sucking a second mark into Dorian’s hip as he goes. 

He leans back only long enough to pull the breeches off--Bull unsubtly tugging them over Dorian’s boots, which he is careful to leave on. He strokes the soft leather of the boots with one hand, smiling to himself, and with the other he reaches for his cock, lying heavy on his thigh.

Experimentally, Dorian lifts his foot from Bull’s hand and plants the sole firmly in the center of Bull’s chest, holding him at bay when he moves to lean back in. Bull freezes, biting his lip and closing his eye. Dorian has seen men less affected by his cock up their asses. 

He is glad of the specially made soles, then. Soft enough to be silent on rooftops, thin enough to register the rise and fall of Bull’s chest. 

“You want to be good, don’t you?” Dorian is fascinated by every twitch of Bull’s face as he works to stay still. Fascinated, also, by the bead of dampness growing on Bull’s cock. Bull’s fingers twitch towards it again, but he remembers to stay still. To be good. 

“Yes,” Bull isn’t guarding himself. He’s consciously allowing Dorian to see each expression as it crosses his face. Dorian can’t name them all, but he knows desire, and he knows arousal. Bull’s gaze, when he opens his eye and looks up at Dorian, is on the edge of pleading.

“What would you like to do,” Dorian asks, “would you rather touch yourself, or touch me?”

“You,” Bull says, “always you.” 

“So pretty when you’re hard for me,” Dorian coos. He takes his boot from Bull’s chest and allows him to shuffle forwards on his knees. 

Despite the leadup, Dorian is still surprised when Bull puts his mouth around his cock with no hesitation. He touches Dorian’s thigh, glancing up for permission. Dorian nods and makes some affirmative noise, and Bull’s hands slide up his legs as he begins to move his head, licking the shaft of Dorian’s cock as he sucks.

He strokes Bull’s head, hand curling around a horn more possessively than he originally intended. Bull pulls off of him with a filthy-sounding slurp and grins up at Dorian. “You gonna show me what you got, big guy?” He kisses the tip of Dorian’s cock, light and teasing. Dorian laughs and tugs hard on Bull’s horn. He sets a faster pace, thrusting in and out of Bull’s mouth.

Bull leans into it, closing his eye and relaxing his jaw even as Dorian feels his fingers tighten on his thigh. “Pull back if you need to,” Dorian warns, and thrusts hard enough that he can feel Bull swallow around him, his chin spit-slick and dripping onto Dorian’s shiny black boot.

He holds his breath with Bull, keeping careful time the same way he does when he disappears. Bull, though stronger than Dorian in many respects, has not trained his lungs to go without oxygen for long, and taps his hand against Dorian’s thigh after only thirty-nine seconds.

Dorian pulls back, stroking Bull’s cheek and praising him as he gasps for breath. He really is beautiful like this, his eye reflecting the nighttime and cheeks ruddy from exertion. “Fuck me,” he rasps when he gets his breath back. “Fuck me please, Dorian.” 

Nodding, Dorian pulls him up for a kiss. “Anything you want, Bull. You need only ask.” He is past the point of fearing how much he means it. 

He guides Bull up onto the bed, kissing his shoulders and stomach as they pass. He leans one hand hard on Bull’s shoulder, and with the other he teases the silver rings in his nipples. He revels in the way Bull’s breath hitches when he touches his tongue to his skin, biting little love marks across his chest and neck.

“Wait here,” he tells Bull, and goes to the chest under the window. There’s some palm oil in his shaving kit, that he keeps around just in case. As he turns back to the bed, a glitter catches his eye.

The necklace he’d tucked into one of Bull’s scarves is lying on the top of Bull’s open suitcase, the sapphires very blue against the silver setting. With a glance back at Bull, he picks it up. The silver is not a perfect match for Bull’s rings, but they’d make a nice set, especially with the horn ornaments. It is so very beautiful.

“It is pretty, isn’t it?” he asks. He is a jewel thief for a reason.

Bull’s eye is locked on the necklace. His expression shows a hunger of the sort Dorian long ago made his own peace with, but he still remembers the ache.

“Well,” Dorian asks, “isn’t it?” He twines the necklace between his fingers, sapphires catching in the moonlight.

“Yes,” Bull says, voice rough and low.

“Would you like me to put it on you?” Dorian asks. Bull told him once that the key to a grift was only asking questions you already knew the answers to. 

He can see the moon reflected from outside in Bull’s nod. 

“I’m sorry, Bull, I couldn’t see what you did in the dark there.” The oil lamp across the room is dim now for lack of fuel, but still burning. 

He walks to the bed and leans over Bull, kissing him lightly, pulling away when he leans up for more. 

“You would look very beautiful, these jewels on your neck--” he kisses Bull’s chest and runs his tongue slowly up his collarbone, where the silver filigree would lay. “I bought these, you know,” he continues conversationally. “They’re not stolen.” Bull’s breath comes harsher. “If you wore them out somewhere, everyone would know to whom you belong.”

“Please,” Bull’s voice is a broken whisper. 

“Mmm?” Dorian is far too fascinated with the trail he is leaving towards Bull’s shoulder to form words.

“Dorian, please put them on me.” Bull’s hands are fisted tight in the starched hotel sheets, trying to resist the urge to touch without permission.

“I’d be happy to.” Dorian straddles Bull, enjoying the way the motion stretches his legs wide even as he reaches behind Bull to fasten the delicate catch, far too fiddly to be grabbed off by any but the most skilled lightfingers. 

“Beautiful,” he says, and whatever part of this was still a game is well and truly gone. The necklace spills across Bull’s chest like an array of stars, a cosmic proof of his loveliness. “So good for me,” Dorian tells him. “So good to ask.”

He takes Bull’s face in his hands and kisses him deeply. Bull pants against his lips. “May I touch you?” he asks.

Dorian nods, and kisses him again as Bull runs his hands across Dorian’s back and thighs. He runs his thumb up the bottom of Dorian’s cock, making it jump as he strokes it until Dorian is breathing hard as well, rolling his hips to chase the feeling of Bull’s strong hand on him.

Finally, he grabs Bull’s wrist to stop him. “You asked so nicely for me to fuck you, Bull. I’m a man of my word, you know.”

Bull smiles and releases him. Dorian gives him one last filthy kiss and kneels at the edge of the bed.

Dorian takes a breath for himself and slides a finger inside Bull. He thrusts it slowly, stroking and kissing his stomach. There are scars there, pale and raised, and Dorian wishes they had the time for him to learn the stories of each of the masks that earned them. Later, perhaps. When the job is done. Bull breathes through the stretch, one hand on Dorian’s shoulder.

He is unabashedly vocal, murmuring in languages Dorian can’t always understand, moaning aloud when Dorian slips in a second finger, and a third. He works Bull methodically, searching for the hidden triggers that make him gasp and tighten his grip. With his other hand, Dorian strokes Bull’s shaft, firm and slow, coaxing him through the initial discomfort as he scissors his fingers and works his lover open. 

“Fuck me,” Bull says again. Dorian is unsure if he sees wetness at the corner of Bull’s eye, or if it’s just a trick of the moonlight. “I’m ready.”

He tips a bit more oil over his own cock before lining himself up with Bull’s entrance and slowly pressing in. Bull groans and grabs at Dorian’s hips hard enough to bruise. He leans over Bull’s body, pressing close, chasing something more than just the heat of Bull around him.

Dorian doesn’t have the fortitude required to draw out the process any longer. He sets an unsteady rhythm, too focused on getting his mouth around Bull’s nipple rings, tugging them gently with his tongue. Bull buries a hand in Dorian’s hair, encouraging the motion even as he shifts his hips up to meet Dorian’s thrusts. 

The necklace glitters on Bull’s skin, moving with every breath. He looks like a marble statue, bathed in moonlight, but he is warm and living under Dorian’s hands. Bull’s head is tipped back, horns pressing into the mattress as Dorian pours himself into the movement. He watches Bull’s throat jump as he wraps a hand around Bull’s cock.

“Beautiful,” he says, feeling Bull shudder. He says it again and again, praising Bull, promising things he shouldn’t, watching and marveling at this gift he has been given. The heights he would travel to protect it are dizzying. 

Bull’s hips start to stutter when they pick up the pace, his breath coming in sharp gasps. Dorian has been on the edge practically since they began, but he didn’t become the Black Fox by lacking tenacity. He tightens his fingers, letting Bull fuck up into the ring of his hand then fall back down onto his cock. 

For all that he has been a vocal participant, Bull comes quietly. A deep gasp, a tightening of the fingers around Dorian’s waist. He says a word Dorian doesn’t recognize, repeating it over and over, first uncertainly and then with increasing reverence. 

Dorian himself holds on for but a moment longer. When Bull leans up and kisses him, he’s gone. Bull takes it so sweetly, all of him softer, gentler than Dorian could have imagined. They lie entwined together for a long moment after that, their breathing in sync. 

When the moon moves away from the window, Dorian rouses himself enough to stand. He wipes them each off and unclasps the necklace from Bull’s neck, putting it away with great care and returning as soon as he can to kiss his lover goodnight.


	22. In Which There is a Given Confidence

Bull wakes up warm, lovebitten, and pleasantly sore. Dorian is curled around his side, head pillowed on his bicep, and Bull can hardly look at him for blushing. 

He talks a big game, when he’s fully buttoned up and safe behind a well-constructed character, but he’s never mixed business and intimacy quite so deeply as he did last night. Bull isn’t sure he’s ever been as intimate as he was last night. It was far beyond ordinary sex, and rubbed tender places in Bull’s heart raw in the best way. He’s made others feel that way, certainly, when a job required it, but no one has ever done it to him--and even thinking that way brings a sour taste to his mouth. He knows Dorian well enough now to believe he is more than a mark to the man, but there is plenty of road to walk between being a mark and Dorian having a genuine interest in...whatever Bull and he were doing last night. 

Beside him, Dorian stirs, and Bull’s cheeks warm all over again. It’s a very small movement, as if Dorian immediately tries to hide it. But where a moment ago he’d been breathing soft and slow, hand resting loosely on Bull’s chest, now he is tense and barely breathing at all.

Bull is used to making first moves, so he sighs and sits up to look down at Dorian. Dorian holds up his act for almost three seconds before he cracks one eye open and looks back up at Bull. he twists the sheets just slightly between his hands, his expression uncharacteristically nervous. On his neck, a bruise that Bull left rests at the top of his collarbone, tempting.

“I hope you don’t expect me to shove over,” Dorian tells him, “I just woke up and I find myself quite comfortable here.” 

Bull shakes his head, reaching out to card a hand through Dorian’s hair. It’s as silky as he remembers it being last night, and Dorian leans into the motion with a soft smile. “I’m uh... I’m good here, too.” 

“Oi! Housekeeping!” Sera hammers on the door, not even trying a convincing maid impression. Bull can hear the scrape of her picks in the fancy newfangled hotel doorknobs.

Dorian scrambles to pull the covers up to his chin. This leaves Bull significantly less covered, but that’s Sera’s problem. Bull uses the remaining seconds before Sera finishes picking the lock to consider grabbing a shirt before evaluating it as too far away to be worth the effort. Besides, moving would jostle Dorian. 

The door swings open and Sera steps in, followed by Vivienne, who knocks on the frame despite the entrance having been made already. “Urgh,” Sera says eloquently. 

“Rude,” Bull replies. He’s far too relaxed for there to be much heat in it. He waves Vivienne in, if only to get her to shut the door. 

Dorian disappears entirely under the sheets.

Vivienne, ever the gallant, waves her hand and summons a second blanket from the closet. Bull grabs it out of the air and wraps it around his middle. “Is this a business meeting?” If it’s not time-sensitive, maybe the ladies can wait on the roof while he and Dorian get dressed.

“I had actually come to give Dorian a final session of healing before we get back to work tomorrow. I’m pleased to see he has most of his strength back already.” Vivienne lets her eyes flicker to the trail of bites Bull knows cover his entire chest for scarcely a moment.

“I’m a wonder, truly,” Dorian says, not yet ready to emerge.

“That you are,” Bull doesn’t mean for his agreement to come out sounding quite as thoroughly satisfied as it does, but what’s done is done. Dorian kicks his thigh lightly and Sera makes a dramatic show of covering her ears. Bull figures turn about’s fair play.

“Yes, well you should still let me check you over. Your full nudity is not required for the occasion, however. Feel free to meet us at Dagna’s when you’re...” she quirks an eyebrow “...more prepared.” 

Dorian extends a single hand and makes a positive gesture. “Good,” says Sera.

She takes the time to lock the door again on their way out, which is kind of her. Cautiously, Dorian surfaces from underneath the covers.

Bull decides the only way out is through. “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about telling the team now.” 

“Indeed,” Dorian’s expression is mercurial. 

“It’s not the way I would’ve chosen the word to get out, but maybe it’s good it’s not a secret from the crew.”

“Maybe it is.” Dorian sits up as well. “You don’t mind?”

“Better they learn now than a couple jobs down the row.”

Dorian’s eyebrows jump, but he brightens considerably. “Good. That’s...good then. In that case, I suppose I don’t mind either.” 

Bull leans over and kisses him. “Good morning, by the way.” 

Dorian kisses him back before they begin the long process of getting dressed. 

\---

Vivienne’s check up on Dorian’s progress is swift, and she joins Bull in the kitchen where he is still washing the breakfast dishes with an unreadable expression.

“I’ve sent him to run his own tests on the replacement jewel,” she informs Bull. 

“I thought it was holding fine?”

“Of course it is. He and Dagna made it brilliantly.”

“All right.” Bull sets down the final teacup. “I’m listening, Ma’am.”

She runs a finger around the rim of the teacup, a tell consciously exposed. “You know how much I respect your work, darling.”

“It’s not going to interfere with my work, ma’am. I know the job hasn’t changed.” 

Vivienne taps one finger slowly against the china. “That’s not what I’m saying to you.”

“It won’t interfere with his work, either.” Bull will make sure it won’t. “But that’s not your call to make.”

“Bull dear, perhaps you would do well to allow me to complete a thought before responding to it.” The teacups stack themselves and float away, landing in their assigned spot with regimentary precision. 

“Sorry, ma’am, I just--” Bull clicks his jaw shut. 

“I met my Bastien on a job, you know.” 

Bull knows better than to believe Vivienne has actually moved to a new topic, and simply nods, waiting for the connections to fall into place.

“I was meant to con him a bit, nothing more. I had counterfeits to pass through a legitimate broker and I knew he wouldn’t look closely at them if he were looking at me.”

Bull nods. He does indeed know this story.

“And then I found I wasn’t conning him anymore. He... actually understood me.” Vivienne shudders a bit. Bull can relate; the mortifiying ordeal of a con artist being known and all that.

“I’m glad you have that, ma’am,” Bull says.

“The thing I might not have told you,” Vivienne continues, “is that I canned the whole job when he got too close and compromised my partner. I was younger then, more foolish, but I weighed my options and chose him, instead of the money.”

“I told you, Ma’am, I--”

“I made the right choice,” Vivienne interrupts him. “And there’s not an employer in the world I wouldn’t burn if Bastien required it.”

Bull isn’t sure what to say to that. 

She places a firm hand on his shoulder. “If you believe, even for a moment, that you have found a person who understands you like that, there is very little you could do to protect him that I would not understand, perhaps even applaud.” 

“He’s,” Bull searches for the right words, “extraordinary. He’s indulged me in things I didn’t even realize I needed, not really.”

“Consider that he may not view them as indulgences,” Vivienne suggests. “Perhaps they are simply considerations you deserve. Things he might enjoy giving to you.”

The patterning on Dagna’s plates is sapphire blue, a detailed edging of florals dotted with silvery stamens like a field of stars. “I felt indulgent, accepting it,” Bull admits, not looking at her.

He can see just enough of Vivienne’s face in his periphery to catch her smile. “We’ll have to work on that, darling.”


	23. In Which the Orlesian Guard Foils a Dastardly Heist

The Emissary 1300-- one of only fifteen in the world-- is installed on the second floor of an unassuming, drab building in the administrative block of the Fair campus. They can’t tunnel in to reach it, and none of the structures around it are close or tall enough to provide entry from above. Vivienne and Sera’s identities are already burned thanks to their disastrous first attempt, and there are neither Red Jennies nor any of the network Bull calls his “chargers” embedded in the Nevarran mercenaries or treasury security force of the Orlesian Guard. 

It’s Dagna who proposes the plan, and despite every argument that they can pose against it, after half an hour of vigorous discussion, it remains the most viable. So, two days before the imperial jewels are to be displayed at the World’s Fair, she, Bull, and Dorian walk right up to the front door.

Dagna’s nerves have given her smile a slightly manic edge as she introduces herself to the guards. Her hand is wrapped tightly around two of Bull’s fingers, who is reprising his role as a boring academic. Dorian stands a bit behind them, head down, arms piled high with boxes of tools. Some are indeed Dagna’s. Some are his. One little velvet-lined box, nestled inside a bag of extra drill bits, holds the replica.

Dorian focuses less on the story Bull and Dagna spin, and more on the layout of the space around the building. He counts the doors and corridors they pass as the three of them are escorted to the vault. He makes note of the glimpses he catches of guards on patrol, some uniformed Orlesian Guards, some not.

Dagna chatters to Bull and their particular escort about the particular spring she wants to replace. She peppers Bull with “sweethearts” and other amusing pet names, all the while assuring the young man with the burgeoning mustache that he needn’t worry, the spring is just a little thing, all it does is ensure that the auto-sealing mechanism doesn’t move too fast. If it does, she explains, it might close on someone’s hand. And that would be very bad, indeed. Bull solemnly holds up his hand with the missing fingers. 

As she describes the various ways crushed knuckles can impede one's life, the young man starts to look a little green around the gills. Dorian’s own hands almost ache a little in sympathy. By the time their escort unlocks a final door and ushers them through, he looks ready to run.

“If you don’t mind,” Dagna says sweetly, “the vault is a piece of proprietary craftsmanship, and it’s a clause in my contract with her Imperial Majesty Empress Celene that only authorized persons are allowed to assist with or be present for maintenance. I am delighted to serve her Majesty, but this vault is my personal intellectual property.” 

The guard stands in the door for a moment, looking conflicted. His boots are far too shiny and stiff for him to have been in the service long, Dorian thinks.

“The replacement I’m doing doesn’t actually require me to disarm or open the vault itself,” Dagna says, voice a touch firmer, smile still in place, “so unless you’d like to explain to the Empress why one of her employees violated the terms of our _personal_ contract…?”

“Yes ma’am,” the young man says. “I’ll just wait, uh. Over there.”

“Please close the door behind you!” Dagna calls.

They wait a beat for the door to close before they jump into action.

Bull crosses the room and stands just to the left of the door, ready to grab anyone who comes through it. Dorian sets his boxes down on the floor, and he and Dagna open them up and start assembling their tools. The clock is ticking.

\---

“Remember, don’t push on the drill, just hold it. You don’t want to crack the glass until--”

“I’ve broken into a vault before, Dagna.” Dorian readjusts his carefully braced grip on the dragonbone drill bit, blowing carefully managed frost from his mouth to keep the rapidly heating silverite from allowing the delicate relocker beneath it to crack. 

“Not _my_ vault you haven’t.” Dagna has an invention of her own that is slowly powdering the dragonbone above the second relocker. It doesn’t require the careful temperature control of Dorian’s work, but it is a bit slower than the drill and leaves a smell like burning hair. Apparently, it’s quite easy to operate, as it seems to leave her free to do a fair bit of micromanagement. 

There’s a change in the quality of the sound just before Dorian feels the familiar give of a door plate, and he yanks the drill back before it can touch the delicate internal mechanisms inside. 

“I’m through,” he tells Dagna, packing up his drill and pulling out the two-part reagent meant to harden the glass and allow them more leeway in forcing the lock. He puts his specially made syringe to the drill hole and squeezes the reagent through, waiting with his cheek pressed against the door for the tell-tale warmth as the chemicals mix and harden.

Dagna’s odd little crushing machine stops on its own as it breaks through the dragonbone, and Dagna is then only seconds behind him. “This self-hardening thing is great stuff,” she tells him conversationally. “You could make a ton of money selling it to factories for mold injections, stuff like that.”

Dorian shrugs. “Tell Sera. All I did was make a more portable version of her original recipe.” The metal he so recently cooled off begins to warm against his cheek, and he nods in satisfaction before tossing the syringe in a nearby plant (he made the mistake of placing the drippy thing back in his bag only once, and he had to replace a lovely pair of leather gloves and his favorite crowbar, now permanently fused to one another).

“You guys all work so well together,” Dagna knocks on her section of door, listening to see if she has filled the hollow spaces. She grins, passing Dorian a stethoscope.

“And you,” Bull’s voice adds. It’s chivalrous to say, but more about the fact that it is true than mere politeness. 

Dorian nods his agreement, placing the stethoscope to the safe wall and beginning to fiddle with the dial. “You’ve saved this job more than once,” he tells her, “I know you’re not really in the life but you’ve more than earned a proper spot on this crew.”

“Is this a crew? --Oh, false gate--” Dorian’s hand freezes on the dial just as he was about to begin twisting it the other way. He listens to Dagna and resumes his work. “From what Sera was telling me this sounded like a one show only, no encores sort of thing.” 

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Bull’s voice very nearly causes Dorian to jump in surprise as he listens to the soft tik-tik-tik of the mechanism. “I’ve spent a really long time working more or less alone. It’s hard to say who you are and what you want when you live that way. I’d prefer to stay together a while, if everyone else is game.”

“I’d like that too,” Dorian doesn’t try to disguise the eagerness in his voice. The first number clicks into place.

“I think it could be fun,” Dagna says, “If Sera is joining you. Vivienne too, of course.”

Dorian skips smoothly over another false gate, the tumbler falling on the second number with a soft _clink_.

“Ma’am’ll come. She wants access to my tailor. Plus she seems to like Dorian okay.”

“And Sera?” Dagna sounds so painfully hopeful it almost makes Dorian want to laugh.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Dagna, but I believe our Sera would follow you to the moon and back if you asked her nicely.” The last tumbler slides into place, and Dorian gestures Dagna to the small, runed button that emerges from the vault door with an elaborate bow. 

She grins and steps forward, pressing her hand into the button. The vault wall opens like a flower as the Emissary recognizes its maker. 

There’s a king’s ransom in jewels and gold ornaments in the vault, but Dorian recognizes the black leather case on a shelf in the back. It stands out among the ornate and glittering treasures, mysterious and matte. Dorian looks straight at that case, and nothing else. This step of the plan requires the illusion of normalcy. Nothing can go missing today, no matter how tempting a treasure trove this is.

It’s heavy and solid when he picks it up, and when he shakes it, he can hear the tiniest sound of the lock mechanism moving. “This will just take me a moment,” he tells Bull and Dagna, clearing a collection of gem-encrusted masks off a table to give himself more space to work.

It’s a straightforward lock, but it’s the magical component that slows him down. The intended key must unlock the glyph that must be inscribed on the inside of the case, or perhaps the Nevarrans just smite the box every time they want to open it. Dorian has to take his time, feeding a slow stream of magic into the glyph, holding it steady as he works his lockpicks inside the keyhole.

He hears the knock on the door, but he trusts Bull and Dagna to deal with it.

He lifts the first pin, holding his breath and the magic. The door opens.

“You!” cries a heavily accented voice. Dorian glances up long enough to see the Nevarran, momentarily dumbstruck in the doorway. He looks a bit slighter in the light of day, but Dorian won’t easily forget his sword. 

“ _You_ ,” Bull growls with far more menace, and yanks the Nevarran through the door. 

Dorian allows himself two seconds to admire the efficiency with which Bull dispatches the startled Nevarran, and another three to admire Bull’s strong, efficient hands. 

“They’ll be coming any second now,” Dagna says when the Nevarran is slumped unmoving on the floor. “The kicking part was pretty loud.”

“Still don’t regret it,” Bull mutters darkly. “Plan B, then?” 

Dagna nods, already pulling out the ropes and wrapping them tightly around her feet. Bull assists, taking a couple precious seconds to remind Dagna where the release knots are. She pulls the knot around her wrists tight with her teeth, then opens her mouth to allow Bull to put in a gag.

The final pin lifts, and Dorian opens the case. The Heart of the Dales glitters on the black velvet, and Dorian does have to admit the sight is worth a little bit of being stabbed. He switches it out for the replica, replaces the case on the shelf and the masks on the table, and steps out of the vault, shutting it behind him.

Footsteps are pounding up the stairs at the end of the hall.

“Well so much for that exit plan,” Bull grumbles. He shoves the heavy potted plant in front of the door, though Dorian doubts it will buy them more than a couple of seconds. “Do we have a plan C or are we just cracking some skulls?” 

Dorian grabs Bull’s hand. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” Bull seems surprised by the quickness of his own answer. 

Dorian has never done anything like this before, but he does tend to work well under pressure. 

“When I tell you, take a deep breath and hold it in, as long as you can.”

“A deep breath?” Bull repeats, “Dorian what--”

Someone kicks the door once, scooting the heavy pot a few inches along the floor.

“Now,” Dorian tells him, and Bull takes a deep breath.

The guard outside really puts her shoulder into it, sending the sad little ficus and its heavy stone pot flying in a shower of dirt. 

They vanish at the same moment, leaving Dagna sitting bound on the floor. A trio of uniformed Orlesian Guards burst into the room, led by the Nevarran woman Dorian recognizes as the one who carried the jewel case away after the carriage heist. One checks over the fallen Nevarran, the second peers around corners, and the third-- the young man who let them in-- gently removes the gag from Dagna’s mouth. She immediately bursts into impressively believable tears.

Dorian glances to the side, over at Bull, who is staring at all this wide-eyed, the hand not holding Dorian’s clamped over his mouth. Dorian gives him what he hopes is a reassuring smile. 

“I loved him!” Dagna wails as the Nevarran gingerly unbinds her wrists. “I _loved_ him and he _used_ me!”

It’s been ten seconds. Dorian is keeping count.

“Did they manage to take anything? Did you see which way they went?” the Nevarran asks. She helps Dagna to her feet.

“No, that poor man interrupted them, and they ran without taking anything when they heard you coming.” Sniffling pitifully, Dagna points away from the direction the guards came. “They said something about using the roof. Please, I need to go home. Oh, I’m so overcome! I think I might faint!”

“Please don’t,” the Nevarran says. Eighteen seconds. Dorian has hit two hundred before, with practice, in a pinch. He doubts Bull will last more than forty. “Miss, do you know their names?”

“I _thought_ I did!” Dagna goes into another brief set of hysterics. She latches onto the Nevarran’s hand. The Nevarran looks uncomfortable. “Please, someone, take me home, I… I need to be alone.” 

Thirty seconds now. Dorian chances a glance at Bull. His eyes are wide and trusting, though Dorian can see him grimace with the effort of holding his breath. 

“You lot,” the Nevarran says to the Orlesians, “get to the roof, now. Miss, I’ll take you to the constable outside, and they can take you home. I need to inform Brigadier-General Pentaghast and then see to those thieves.”

“Yes, all right,” Dagna says faintly. She hustles the guards out of the room with more tears. Dorian trusts her to keep the Nevarran busy for a while. 

They are well past thirty-nine seconds now, rapidly approaching fifty. Bull’s chest begins to heave with the effort of not drawing breath, but his eyes stay locked on Dorian’s, calm as can be. 

He holds up five fingers. Bull squeezes his hand and nods, clearly in pain. When the door swings shut again, Dorian counts down as slowly as he can bear.

Bull gasps as they slide back into reality, his chest heaving as he lets go of Dorian to brace his hands on his thighs, breathing deep. “Koslun’s shriveled ballsack. You do that every time?”

“I prefer traditional methods of vanishing,” Dorian says. “But it’s convenient.”

Bull takes three deep breaths. “Reminds me of the time I almost got buried alive. I like you a lot, Dorian, but that was hell. Let’s get moving.”

There are only a few things that Dorian can’t leave behind in the collection of tools. He’d have been more annoyed at the loss of the dragonbone drill had Dagna and her seemingly endless supply of hardware not joined their crew. His amulet is already around his neck, his best lockpicks are already in his pocket, and his best knives are always close to hand. The Heart of the Dales, in its carrying case, is safe in the bag slung over Bull’s shoulder. The rest of the tools he built for this heist are either duplicates or meant to be disposed of. 

They hear the guards on the roof above them as they slip down the stairs. Dorian takes them to the back of the building, away from the front door, where Dagna is causing an admirable scene. They get a window open enough for Bull to climb out, and make a quick break across the courtyard to a busy thoroughfare, full of excited and chattering fairgoers, and vanish-- more comfortably this time-- into the waiting crowd.


	24. In Which There Is A Truly Novel Sight At The Fair

Dagna makes it back to her townhouse nearly a full hour after Bull and Dorian return, red eyed and shaky as the Nevarran helps her alight from the carriage. She draws out her thanks until Sera twitches the curtains in the parlor window.

The charade lasts as long as it takes for Bull and Dorian to arrive in the foyer after she shuts the door behind her. When she sees them she sits down on the floor, giggling hysterically. Sera kneels down next to her, rubbing Dagna’s arms.

“Thank the Stone you two are all right,” Dagna says. “That was the scariest thing I’ve done in a long time!”

“I think you made her uncomfortable enough to look past any little mistakes,” Bull tells her, joining Sera on the floor.

“Every time I felt like she might be beginning to suspect something, I just cried harder. Not on purpose, that’s just what happened!” She holds Sera’s hand tightly as she talks.

“Well then.” Vivienne joins them in the parlor as well. “Champagne to celebrate our success?”

“Tea for me, please.” Dagna lets Sera and Bull hoist her to her feet.

\---

Bull’s never been the guy who gloats from a hidden balcony while his machinations spell dramatic doom for all to see. If he leaves anything behind to be discovered, it’s carefully calculated and ideally he is long, long gone beforehand, presumed dead, if at all possible.

But he has one more role to play. They have to muddy the waters a little bit more.

Their first plan, before Dorian had been stabbed, before Dagna had seen through them and fallen for Sera, was to pin the whole thing on the mad inventor, Mistress Smith. Now, of course, they are taking great pains to keep Dagna’s reputation clean. Not only because Sera would have had their heads, but also because, as Vivienne has proven time and again, there’s nothing more useful to a thief than having your real name as a spotless alter ego. 

Instead, Bull’s invented draconology professor will take the fall. He’ll make one last dramatic appearance at the fair, “vanish” the Heart of the Dales, and escape in Dagna’s “stolen” flying machine. Crashing it isn’t officially part of the plan, but the longer Dagna tries to explain the controls to him, the more likely it seems. Bull doesn’t understand why it needs a _wheel_ , let alone all the buttons. Why couldn’t she have used the nice, simple tillers they have in automobiles?

The nice thing, he figures, about being an evil, thieving Vashoth in Orlais, is that probably no human who sees this sideshow will be able to describe him more accurately than “evil, thieving Vashoth” when it’s over. 

The downside is it means the first trick is to not get made on his way into the exhibit. Dorian has a window of when the fake Heart will turn to gas, so Bull has to be in position before then with his evil cackle at the ready, or at the very least ready to move.

The outfits Krem has put them all in for this event are, unquestionably, atrocious. They do, however, do the job of making sure no one is looking at their faces. Bull thinks he could have done without the black glitter on his very-evil tailcoat, but he respects Krem’s artistic vision.

After so long as a team, it’s a bit nerve-wracking to have Sera, Vivienne, and Dorian vanish into the crowd and leave him so exposed, but Bull has faith they’re there. If they started out too close to him, the con wouldn't work. He fingers the magical amulet Dorian gave him under his shirt as he walks. He didn’t ask how it worked, Dorian had simply kissed him and pulled it from under his own shirt to hook around Bull’s neck, saying, “there. Now no spell will hold you.” Bull hopes he’s right. 

He draws some attention as he strolls along, since he stands at least a head above most of the people here, and his dark overcoat is a bit ostentatious, though it’s nothing compared to what’s underneath. He keeps an eye out for guards, though those are thin on the ground. He sees a few more general constables, and once the blue flash of a uniformed member of the imperial guard, but he meanders through the park unmolested.

He buys his ticket to see the Heart, along with a couple other less prized crown jewels, paying with bank notes he knows can’t be traced back to their employer, and shuffles into line, trying to look like he’s here to gawk. He catches a glimpse of Sera’s straw-colored hair out of the corner of his eye, stood stiffly by the hall of magitechnical advancement. She doesn’t look at him but flashes him five fingers, then three. Eight minutes left, then. Dorian claims his work has a two hour margin of error, but Bull is certain Sera’s math will be right. 

The flying machine is on a raised platform in a wide chamber behind him, underneath a skylight of truly staggering proportions. The cost of all the glass in the building alone could feed a poor Val Royean family for a decade. The Heart of the Dales is twenty feet away in a glass case with a stony-faced guard at each corner. There are possibly a hundred civilians within eyeshot. It’s not the most terrifying place he’s been in the past two days--there’s at least air in here--but it doesn’t make for a comfortable tourist experience.

Bull does a slow half-circle of the room, not putting the gem and its guards between him and the flying machine. He clocks three people doing a terrible job of blending in with the sight-seers. Their tightly laced boots and the subtle impression of concealed weapons are dead giveaways. It would also help their undercover jobs a lot if the Orlesian Guard expanded their range of regulation hairstyles. 

He pauses to stare earnestly at a little cluster of incubators, the sort typically meant for chickens, which have been retrofitted to hold premature infants. The elvhen man in charge of the exhibit gladly and quietly accepts the roll of banknotes Bull pushes to him, though Bull is careful not to look him in the eye as he turns away quickly. Bull himself cares about supporting efforts like this, but his extremely villainous persona does not.

Bull looks for a glimpse of Dorian’s Hessian boots in the crowd, but doesn’t really expect to find them. He has seen Vivienne from a distance, pretending to sip at a coffee not far from the guards’ break station, but only because she allowed herself to be seen.

There’s an intricately decorated Dwarven waterclock in view, and so Bull knows with certainty he is now less than two minutes away from the expected sublimation. He coughs into a handkerchief, clearing his throat, and rolls his bad ankle in a small circle, getting ready to move quickly.

He considers his list of possible motivations as he quietly unfastens the overcoat and slips under the velvet rope separating the crowd from the flying machine, and decides to go with the simplest: chaos.

“Gentlefolk of Orlais,” he booms as he whips off his overcoat, revealing his glittering tails and the waistcoat made of crushed velvet with its vermilion wadding. The whole crowd turns to him, seeming to gasp almost as one. Someone screams. He thinks it might actually be Dagna. “For too long have you lived in peace and prosperity, not knowing the dangers that lurk within your own city! You do not know the villains that stalk your shadows. You do not know _me_!”

“Stop that!” shouts one of the guards by the Heart’s display case. “Get down from there!”

He doesn’t have a mustache like Dorian’s but he twirls his anyways. “It is this lack of respect that has led me to you. Here. Today. Now.” Two of the undercovers are coming towards him through the crowd, and he suspects that means that the third is behind him. Much more quietly, a guard near the ticket booth, one he only now spots on the balcony, and one who has just finished her break start forward with purpose. If Sera is right-- and Sera is never wrong--he has just twenty more seconds.

The key to any good con is that Bull has to believe it just as much as his marks. “I disdain your honest work, your chantry’s blessings, your lives of civility and moral righteousness. That’s all a mask, pasted over the rotten core of your country. It’s all a lie. And I intend to end it.” 

A kid starts to cry, and Bull does regret that a little bit, but he’s deep in it now.

“Your country,” And here he kicks the anchor line holding the flying machine in place loose in the guise of a dramatic flourish, “has no _heart_.” He points to the jewel case across the way. The undercovers look around even as the three uniformed guards charge.


	25. In Which Our Beloved Crew Steals a Heart

The blinding flash as the replica fizzles and disappears like flashpaper comes right on schedule, and all the electric lights in the building go out. Dorian has time to consider that the lights weren’t actually part of the plan as he swings himself up and over the side of the flying machine. 

Dagna is already inside, laid flat on her belly and holding a spanner. He has a sudden inkling of how the lights went out even as someone screams “the Heart, it’s gone!” and Dagna hisses “The engine is on! Go! Go!” She mashes the foot pedals Bull never quite got the hang of with her hands and prepares to release the brake. 

Two uniformed guards come leaping over the machine’s sides, also right on schedule, shouting and brandishing drawn weapons, as Bull launches the flying machine. Only for this man, Dorian thinks, would he ever consider launching himself into the air like this, let alone entering physical combat while it happens.

Bull grabs the wheel and punches the button to release the wings. The machine lurches a dozen feet into the air, then jumps forward, smashing through the glass skylight and bringing them far too close to the roof of the nearest building. Dorian staggers, gripping the sides of the cab tight. Bull forgets his role long enough to steady Dorian, pulling him back and shielding him from the oncoming edge of a steel girder and giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Dorian doubts anyone noticed in the chaos.

The rudder scrapes across the tiles, and the machine shudders, but Dagna leans hard on the pedals and it screeches forward… and up. And further up. The Fair stretches out below them, people gasping and pointing. 

Vivienne, her powder blue Orlesian guard’s uniform coated in a dusting of splintered glass, is the first to rise to her feet, the machine lurching underneath her. “You will not get away with this, foul villain!” She projects her voice to the audience below.

“He needs to get away with it a bit longer,” Sera mutters. She shoves one of the thinner metal girders that held the panes of the skylight together aside, shucking the uniform jacket as she goes. “Gonna take a sec to lug the corpse out of here.”

“Swing starboard and turn the blue dial twenty degrees clockwise!” Dagna instructs Bull, pumping the pedals. “Go slowish over the Fairgrounds, then take us over the canal.”

Dorian fakes taking a hard punch from Bull and leans down to help Sera pry the crate open. They assemble the mannequin as quickly as they can as Vivienne duels dramatically with Bull. Built off of the dress form Krem uses for Bull and his other vashoth clients, it would not hold up under close scrutiny, but it will sink into the canal, and no one will find it until they’re all well away, if they ever find it at all. 

Sera pops up for a minute and wrestles with Bull for the wheel. She lets him lean her out over the edge for the crowd to see and scream over-- Dorian quickly grabs her feet-- before she falls back down beside Dorian. “We’ve got four minutes until they have archers on the roofs,” she says.

Dagna laughs aloud, which Bull hurriedly covers with a grunt of pain. “You’re worried about archers in four minutes?” She says, “We’ll be halfway to Val Chevin in four minutes.” 

“Could we make it five?” Dorian asks queasily. The airship is already going quite fast enough for him. He stands shakily as Vivienne ducks down to fix the mannequin’s boots and draws the pistol he loaded with blanks from his odious guard’s belt. He aims it ostentatiously in Bull’s general direction. 

Bull grabs his wrist, shouting “The Orlesian Guard shall not defeat me so easily!” and Dorian allows the pistol to be fired into the air, careful not to hit the delicate mechanisms keeping them in flight with any of the blowback from the blanks. Below them, there’s more screaming, and Dorian chances a glance at the ground to see at least two people on horseback, trying to keep pace despite the crowded Fair walks.

“Shot or stabbed, Sera?” Vivienne’s voice comes across crisply even in a whisper. She finishes the mannequin’s vest--Krem had bemoaned the tragic waste of nearly a yard of his most villainous black velvet--then stands again to take a swing at Bull.

“Me or the corpse?” Sera asks. “Because I thought he was s’posed to kill you, an’ then I’d kill ‘im in revenge.” 

“The corpse, obviously, but if you see a dramatic opportunity to die by all means take it.”

“I don’t s’pose it matters much but stabbing’s a bit more work with the paint.” She stands and yells, “unhand him, villain!”

Bull very carefully and gently whips Dorian around, using his pistol to fire a blank at Sera. 

Sera’s scream is ear piercing. Dorian is reminded of an opera singer from Tevinter who was rumored to train her breath control by singing scales while jogging up and down the stairs in her house, among other vigorous activities.

Dorian and Vivienne make a great show of trying to save their fallen comrade in order to give Bull time to steer. “Closing in on the Docks in fifteen seconds,” Sera tells them sharply. She is spending her fake afterlife quickly fastening a red and black cape to the mannequin’s shoulders in preparation for his deadly fall.

Vivienne comes up from pretending to weep over Sera’s corpse, hurriedly splashing a bit of red paint over her chest. “You beast! You’ve killed her!” Sera’s corpse sniggers a bit. She stays low as she and Dagna haul the enormous custom-made mannequin into position, fully dressed.

“And next I shall kill you!” Bull shouts, drawing a blade Dorian is fairly certain hasn’t been sharpened since Bull stole it. 

Bull gives a couple of elaborate flourishes with his rapier, giving Vivienne time to unholster her pistol. 

“Center chest,” she mutters to Sera, before pulling the trigger. 

Bull staggers back so convincingly that Dorian feels a horrid pang in his chest for a moment. 

Sera tosses paint onto the mannequin’s sternum as Bull crumples in the direction of the side railing, sparing Dorian a wink as they soar above the deepest part of the canal. 

“One, two, three, heave!” Dagna hisses, now on the count. Bull brandishes his sword as if going in for a final assault and Dorian jumps between him and Vivienne, sending the mannequin plummeting into the canal below with a hard shove as Bull flattens himself to the deck. 

The dock erupts into cheers below them. 

After that, it is only a simple matter to pretend complete ignorance at how to land the flying machine (Dorian truly doesn’t know, though he’d guess the lever clearly labelled “landing gear” has something to do with it) in order to send the Orlesian guard scurrying off to go find Mistress Smith before her runaway invention goes too far out of sight over the Waking Sea.

“It’s too bad I’m not at home,” Dagna says, watching the sunset from her place snuggled beneath Sera’s arm, “this crew seems like it could really use my help.” 

Sera beams at her. 

\---

They land on a deserted stretch of Nevarra’s southern coast a few hours before sunrise, and as pleased as Dorian is with their success, it feels good to stretch his legs on solid ground--almost as good as it feels to have Bull admiring those stretches. They are well and truly home free.

“I’ll send a note to Herself when we get to Cumberland,” Sera says. “Set up a dead drop to trade off the Heart and the second half of our pay.” She is pulling out a basket full to the brim with honey and bread and Orlesian cheese as she speaks.

“Do you suppose we put on enough of a spectacle?” Dorian asks, accepting the flute of champagne Bull hands to him and its accompanying kiss.

“We stole the Heart of the Dales and then got away on the world’s only flying machine,” Sera says, flopping backwards onto the picnic blanket Vivienne has just laid out in the Nevarran sand. “Even I don’t know how to make a bigger job of it.”

“I covered my tracks well enough, right?” Dagna’s first-heist euphoria is slowly coming down.

“Bastien will cover anything you missed,” Vivienne says comfortingly. “He is very good at telling unwanted callers that a lady is unwell and does not wish to be disturbed. Once I was in bed with a fever for weeks. My condition was apparently so delicate that the Controller General apologized for trying to ask me about a break-in at the Summer Palace the next time he saw me.”

“Fireworks,” Dorian says, snapping his fingers. “Next time we could use fireworks.”

“Ooh,” says Dagna, anxiety now dealt with. “Those can be _very_ unstable, you know.”

“What’re we stealing with ‘em?” Sera asks.

“Dorian needs a new pair of cufflinks,” Bull tells the crew, smiling. “And I know just the place to get them.” 

Dorian grins back at Bull, pulling him in for a kiss as they watch the first glimmers of the slowly rising sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another year is done, as always, not exactly on the 25th, but close enough! Time isn't real, but love is. Thanks for reading, friends! 💜💜💜💜💜💜


End file.
